Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Andrew Matthews and I'm a snowboarder athlete from Yellowknife, NWT. I decided to start this blog to keep my friends, family, fans and sponsors up to date about my life as a full time snowboarder. I will be posting about my travels, competitions, training and random awesome things that I come across. Enjoy the journey!

Monday, November 25, 2013

On top of the world in Austria

While many people in Canada dread the dropping temperatures and snow that eventually signals the start of winter - I can’t wait. In fact, this year I didn’t wait. I just got back from Europe where I got an early start to my winter. We were snowboarding on what seemed like the top of the world. The glaciers in Austria are able to stay open year round because of their elevation of 3,000 meters!

This year we followed the tips we heard through the grapevine about a snowboard park with a 5 jump line in October. That’s amazing for a time that is typically spend waiting for the snow to fly in North America. I got some great training in but struggled with some lower back pain which limited my riding.

After 2 weeks we packed up and drove halfway across Austria (not that far) to Dachstein for my first competition of the year. It was a 4 star TTR slopestyle course with 2 rails and 3 jumps. Despite very challenging conditions and dealing with my injury, I was happy with how I rode in the competition. It just wasn’t my day though. My last run came down to the last jump on an inverted 720. The trick didn’t come around properly and I fell.

The level of riding was very high because there aren’t any other competitions at that time of year. It was great to see what the international field was throwing down in their runs. Now its time for me to get out there and learn the tricks I need to consistently make the finals at events like that. I’m heading to Colorado for another training camp in a weeks time to do just that. I can’t wait!