Five days of freestyle & free ride action in Obertauern: THE SPOTIVAL with contests, concert, party and workshops was a blast.
The workshops: First jumps and Reggae sound
From the 26th to 30th of March 2014 The Spotival in Obertauern offered workshops, music and unlimited freestyle action. The five-day snow festival started with freestyle and free ride workshops. Safety first: Guided by experienced professionals the backcountry greenhorns were introduced to off-piste riding and learnt essentials about safety gear and snow profiles. All freestyle rookies made their first encounter with the boxes, rails and small jumps of The Spot's easy-slope style park. Thanks to the right advice and tips of the coaches, every participant could carry home a few more skills at the end of the day – no matter, whether business man from Vienna or student from Hamburg.
On Wednesday some sunny island tunes did the after workshop warm-up: The local band The Wallnuts and the Italian Reggae band Sisyphos heated up the crowd and the Red Bull Brandwagen.
The Jam Contest on Saturday made produced even more ambitious action. The 45 riders, which partly came from Scandinavia or Estonia, were literally flabbergasted when they first saw the jaw-dropping multi-jib-obstacle. In just four days the shaper crew created that badass set-up. Something like that has never been seen in the eastern Alps before and the shredders honored the versatile possible uses accordingly. No jib and no transition was spared – for short: The spectators and judges were amazed and all present photographers had a hard time to capture the happenings.
Not his first rodeo: The northern Italian free skier Simon Volgger convinced the judges with tricks like a board slides to 450 out at the up rail, a cork 3 on the corner, rodeos and was one of the few that did take the c-rail with a 270 out. Snowboarder Patrick Brunsteiner from Schladming was unbeatable due to tricks like nose press bs' 3s at the up rail or blunt reverts on the wooden jib obstacle and is therefore now proud owner of a GoPro 3 black edition. Scandinavian snowboard lady Erika Kolbert proved that she has way more to offer than just a pretty face by delivering highly technical tricks. Podium places one and two were taken by the Zillertal posse Betty Wildauer and Eva Gruber. Beer makes the boys jump: Patrick Brunsteiner outperformed the Kiwi Michael McCloy, showed the highest ollie over Desperados beer crates and won a snowboard sponsored by FLOW. In the meantime the spectators had the opportunity to test ski, boards and next season's gear from Burton, Flow, Völkl, GoPro and Blue Tomato for free.
After a very exhausting contest everybody went straight to bed... not! Everybody partied till the early morning at the official after party with the DJ crew Smok1ng Fing3rz and lovely Desperados-girls at Monkeys Heaven.
Sun vs. Powder: Jam Session instead of POWAIR OPEN
Due to the spring-like temperatures the POWAIR Open on Sunday – Europe's first powder kicker event – had to be cancelled. Instead a best trick session went on at the Kehrkopf. As if the after party had never happened – or maybe just because – the local Ferdinand Winter showed banger tricks like a front flip Japan air and won the corner session. Estonias finest Mario Visnap dominated the jib area with stylish gap 207s and a super clean bunt to fakie. That was a perfect end of a action-packed winter sports festival with perfect weather conditions and and many happy faces
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