4th Volcom Banked
at Kitzsteinhorn was a wrap
A sum up, by the host with the most himself - Jan Prokes gives us the lowdown on the The 4th annual Volcom Kitzsteinhorn Banked Slalom:
As every year, it was a blast and it appears we must be doing something right because this year all starting spots filled up in less than 36 hours and we had more than 120 keen riders on the waiting list. Our snow wizard aka head shaper Martin « Lippi » Liebmann and his crew built a fun & user-friendly course the week prior to the event but little did we know that the biggest storm of the winter was to arrive just two days before drop in. It started snowing late on thursday and come saturday morning, 80cm++ had accumulated on top of the course. So while the lucky ones were shredding the deepest pow of the season under bluebird skies, a tight crew of slightly less lucky shovel slingers were sweating blood and tears while digging for their life in order to get the course ready on time. And somehow, miraculously, we did. Race on!
After the first run, the starting field was cut down to the 55 fastest overall, plus top 5 women, who each got a 2nd final run, with added style point on offer on a purposely-built hip directly after the finish line. Rumour has it Beckna and Terje topped the style awards.
With free beers, burgers, drinks and fruit fon offer for all, and free tees for all racers, accompanied by the frenetic mc’ing by Larrogs and Stephane Grenet, the 200-300+ crowd at the bottom of the course went apeshit every time someone set a new best time. Nitro Snowboards also had a workshop to tune everyone’s boards and test their best sticks.
Simply said, if you weren’t there, you missed out bigtime. After a massive 4-course dinner at our beloved hotel Active by Leitner to refuel the energy tanks we went straito lino to the Medieval Castle for live performances by Astroboy and Superglu, be sure to check them out on Youtube. The rest is history, or possible too provocative be revelead here.
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Here are the dirty dozen leading the pack:
1 HAAKONSEN, TERJE 00:01:08,58 00:01:08,93 00:01:08,58
2 LONGO, ARTHUR 00:01:10,92 00:01:08,97 00:01:08,97
3 STAAHLKLOO, PONTUS 00:01:11,24 00:01:09,95 00:01:09,95
4 DAVID, MICHAEL 00:01:10,53 00:01:12,06 00:01:10,53
5 MERMILLOT, JAMES 00:01:11,88 00:01:11,22 00:01:11,22
6 BERGREM, TORGEIR 00:01:11,42 00:01:14,85 00:01:11,42
7 CARDINAL, THOMAS 00:01:11,89 00:01:11,50 00:01:11,50
8 LIEBMANN, MARTIN 00:01:13,74 00:01:11,59 00:01:11,59
9 BALTIC, SVETKO 00:01:12,17 00:01:11,64 00:01:11,64
10 HÖFLICH, ANDRE 00:01:13,03 00:01:11,81 00:01:11,81
11 BAUER, PETER 00:01:11,87 00:01:12,94 00:01:11,87
12 LUGGEN, LEVI 00:01:11,93 00:01:19,96 00:01:11,93
Photography by Vernon Deck, Martin Herrmann and Theo Acworth for VOLCOM.
At last here is a lil' iphone e flic from the lodown squad, before we get the official footage.