The introduction of Slopestyle into the main stream of recognized competitive snowboarding disciplines is great news for local riders since riding jibs and kickers is what local riding is all about. Sitting just above the Olympic Halfpipe in Melezet/Bardonecchia the Slopestyle course consisted of a set of rails, a snow constructed butter box followed by a series of 4 massive kickers that lead you straight to the finish.

120 riders from 25 countries attended the competition. Amongst these were local riders, Marcin Jekot, Robbie Alunni, Katlego Maponyane, Matt Amoretti and Martha Jekot. This was the crew that volunteered to put themselves on the line and jumped into the deep end of fierce international competition.

And what a deep end it was. The heavy snow falls in the week leading up to the competition meant a delay in the construction of the slopestyle course. The good news for the organizers was that the massive snowfall enabled the organizers to build a series of 40 – 60 foot kickers that used more snow than to  cover the cumulative runs of all of our local ski resorts. The bad news for the riders was that these kickers were considerably bigger than anything they were used to, compounded by the fact that any hope of training on the them disappeared as hastily as the snow clouds gathered. How did this make the riders feel, nervous, very, like an Impala around a hungry lion.

The day of Qualifiers dawned with blue skies and sun. Competition rules imposed team quotas of 3 per country. In the end it went down to a rider vote and it was decided that Marcin, Matt and Martha would represent SA. The riders dug deep and flung themselves into the course. The mens field was loaded with big names like Matty Crepell, Kevin Baeckstrom and many others. Guys were busting 900's, 1080's and most of these corked and cabbed too. Marcin and Matt both finished in the Top 50, while Martha sparkled with a 10th place finish in the qualifiers.

And, as the sun set, the snow started puking from the sky! 60cm of snow fell overnight. Fresh snow is slow snow and after the first few riders on the course couldn’t clear a single kicker the organizers were forced to cancel the finals as it was no longer safe to compete. This meant there were no official results. In a way it was a major bummer, but at the end of the day we as a nation had popped our world cup cherry and made an impact at the first ever Slope style World Cup.

Back in the pipe things were no different. A 135m long pipe with vertical walls strectching 5.5m at 16.5 degrees with fresh snow is nothing less than completely undesired conditions. The park crew had to work through the night to clear snow and re-cut the pipe to try and prevent this pipe qualifiers and eventually the finals following in the same footsteps as the Slopestyle finals.

With snowfalls persisting through the day, riders pushed on and did not fail to amaze judges and spectators alike with their daring manouvers in the pipe. At the end of the day everyone was waiting anxiously to hear the verdict form the event organizers. It seems like the snow will be lifting and it will open a small window to run the finals.

Good weather and a well prepared pipe definately boosted the riders confidence encouraged them to push the limits. Matty Crepell took the top spot in the mens division with Nathan Johnaston and Iouri Podladtchikov following in a close third. The womens divions was dominated by the US snowboarding team with Kelly Clarkson in first place and Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler in second and third position.