Antwerp Big Air World Cup

Goeiendag (flemish for hello)

The Big Air at Anterwerpen was a great experience. The jump was a way safer (read: more fun) jump than the last Big Air that I did in Quebec City. They raised up the knuckle of this jump so that there was less impact if you didn't have enough speed to make the landing. The snow condition was perfect despite a little bit of rain for the competition. It was cool to see how many people came out to check out the event. Belgium doesn't have many hills so this was a big deal for the city to host this event. On Friday night we had a training session and there was about 7,000 people watching! During the finals on Saturday people took over the streets and there must have been well over 10,000 fans that came out.

Frida and I drove about 10 hours from Austria to make it to the event just in time for practice. We spent the night in a small city in Germany and drove the rest of the trip the next day. Our rental car had hardly any acceleration and had a tough time even making it up some hills! When I arrived at the venue I didn't have a bib and no one seemed to know where I could find one so that I would be able to do the practice. Eventually I found it but the gentleman at the race office explained to me that I needed to pay $80 in order to compete. I had left my wallet in the car and spent the next 30 minutes (which seemed like 3 hours) searching for Frida,who had the car keys, so that I could get my 6 jumps in practice. I finally found her and made my practice... thank God I was in the second heat!

In the competition I really just wanted to land a solid trick. I stuck with my game plan and landed a front 7 really well in my first run. Then I was free to go all in so I went for the front 10. I had a good takeoff - held my grab - landed... and then over rotated a little bit on my heel side edge but I quickly brought it back. This was good enough for 28th place out of 52 riders but more importantly the best I've ever ridden in a World Cup competition so far.

Tot ziens!

The Venue - Frida Berglund Photography

Dropping in - Frida Berglund Photography

Andrew poking out a grab in training - Frida Berglund Photography