So the inaugural World Snowboarding Championships are a wrap, and a rather successful and tasty wrap at that. World Champions in quarterpipe, halfpipe and slopestyle were crowned in Oslo in a blatant endeavor to wrest back control of snowboarding from the nefarious hands of the FIS and IOC. Kudos and a tip of the hat to Henning Andersen, a tireless champion for our sport, and his entire staff for pulling off a nearly flawless event that truly represents modern competitive snowboarding. Chapeau, buddy, you guys made us proud!
Personally, I was fresh off the plane from 2 weeks in Japan about an hour before the start of the quarterpipe final. It was a surprise I even managed to see it at all, but see it I did, even though it was all over in a flash. Despite a number of set backs during the construction of the massive monolith, the set up looked amazing in Holmenkollen, and the dudes were boosting. None more than the Sprocking Cat himself though, as always Haakon pulls out all the stops and goes bigger than any one else. Highest air at 7.8 meters, although he did pay the price with a gnarly slam when he decked out on a previous attempt. Kimmy Rune Hansen stomped a beautiful double chuck for Best Trick, easily the most technical trick of the whole night. Ollie Gitler is a grown-ass man now, and he put down a man-sized, super stylish McT for the win. How do you spell World Champion again? Big ups, Ollie, you crushed it homie!
And that was all she wrote, big ups again to Henning Andersen and whole WSC crew for an amazing job, see you at the next World Champs in 2016!
All photos by Thrilly Tom Lenartowicz, unless duly noted. Check out Thrilly's twitter feed and his site!