Riders from all over the world flocked to Andorra this weekend for the ninth edition of the Grandvalira Total Fight. This year the Total Fight upgraded to 5 stars on the World Snowboard Tour making it one of the season’s most globally anticipated slopestyle events.

American domination in the qualifiers:
During the qualifying sessions, Americans Seth Hill and Eric Willett came out on top. The qualifiers were divided into two groups of 29 riders who each had two rounds, with the best round counting. Each group was distilled to 12 creating a total of 24 riders for the Grandvalira Total Fight 2013 finals.

A Canadian Victory
The weather was temperamental for today’s finals; a mixture of snow, rain, wind and sun accompanied the riders throughout the day. The 24 finalists were pitched against each other in pairs, with only two rounds to prove their skills and knock out their rivals. The pairing, which depended on the previous day’s scores, went as such: Janne Korpi against Seth Hill, Tor Lundstrom against Brage Richenberg, Jon Versteeg against Eric Willett, Jeremy Thompson against Charles Reid, Marco Grigis against Aleksi Partanen, Simon Gruber against Ville Uotila, Tyler Nicholson against Spencer Link, Ian Thorley against Eric Beauchemin, Peter Horak against Mans Hedberg, Robby Balharry against Nuuti Niemela, Kevin Backstrom against Simen Neraker and Kevin Kok against Markku Koski. The 12 riders who made it to the final were: Seth Hill, Brage Richenberg, Eric Willett, Charles Reid, Aleksi Partanen, Ville Uotila, Tyler Nicholson, Eric Beauchemin, Mans Hedberg, Nuuti Niemela, Kevin Backstrom and Kevin Kok.

Thanks to mother nature’s shaky mood, the weather got wilder and wilder making the visibilty close to zero, meaning that, despite the shapers hard work, the slopestyle was getting slower and the finalists couldn’t make it to the jumps. Just as it looked like the weather was getting her way and ending the Total Fight prematurely, the sun came out and the competition continued. Unfortunately, the tardiness meant that the judging system had to be changed and the 12 finalists only had two runs each to win the competition.

This year’s hands down Grandvalira Total Fight 2013 winner was Charles Reid from Canada, who won with a spectacular run which started off with a Gap Front 270 Front Board followed by a Gap Front Boad to Fakie, Cab Double Cork Mute 900 and sweetly polished off with a Back Rodeo 5 Melon.

Eric Willett came close to the Canadian with a round that started off with a Front 270 Front Board followed by a Front Board, Front Mute and finished by a Back Rodeo 5 Melon

Swedish star Kevin Backstrom came third with an epic run: a Gap Front Lip followed by a Backside 50-50 Front 180 Off, Cab 900 Melon and finished by a Back 720 Mute.

22-year-old Charles Reid, a resident of Mont-Tremblant (Quebec, Canada) said: “It feels pretty good to get up on the podium and win first prize, even more so when it’s a TTR event like this. I didn’t expect to win the competition but I had a lot of confidence in my tricks. The circuit was incredible, you could get a lot of speed, it was really good. I’ll be back next year for sure!”

The first fifteen winners shared 40.000 € of cash between them. The first three won 15.000 €, 10.000 € and 5.000 € respectively.

NAME                           COUNTRY                 SPONSOR                 HIGHEST SCORE
1 – Charles Reid                      CAN                    Oakley                                84.67
2 – Eric Willett                         USA                    Vans                                   82.33
3 – Kevin Backstrom              SWE                    Nike                                    73.33
4 – Eric Beauchemin              USA                     DC                                       69.00
5 – Tyler Nicholson                CAN                    Lib Tech                            65.00
6 – Nuuti Niemela                  FIN                      Smith                                 58.67
7 – Aleksi Partanen                FIN                      Koli                                    55.00
8 – Ville Uotila                       FIN                      Dye                                     52.33
9 – Kevin Kok                           ITA                      Burn                                   46.00
10 – Seth Hill                           USA                     Sims                                   39.67
11 – Brage Richenberg           NOR                    Sabotage                           31.67
12 – Mans Hedberg                SWE                     DC                                      28.33

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