Press Release: Event Report

Vans Groms Open
Mayrhofen, Jan. 6th 2017                                                                   
                                                                                                                                     
British youngster Billy Cockrell wins The 10th anniversery of The Vans Groms Open

The already tenth edition The Vans Groms Open were held in Vans Penken Park in Mayrhofen on n Jannuary 6th. The Competition is for all Snowboarders up to the age of 18 years old.

Riders joined the competition from all over Europe including; Belgium, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Great Britain, Austria, Germany and Latvia showed up in Mayrhofen on this freezing but mostly blue bird day.

The slopestyle run consisted of an optional down rail or down tube, followed by a 8m table kicker, a second 10m table and as the final obstacle, another kicker with a 12m Kicker. After a heavy snowfall the day before, Oriol Rosell and his shaping crew did an amazing job cleaning the park so the competition was able to start on time.

The Judges; Lars Oesterle and Teo Ivancic evaluated the riders in a  2 hour session in 4 categories with three runs each, with the best one counted.

At the end of the day, British youngster, Billy Cockrell  was deamed the winner oft he Rookies category with a cab 180 50-50 FS 180 out on the down rail, cab 540 at the first kicker, frontside 360 at the second and backside 720 at the third kicker. Young Czech; Jan Rovenski came 2nd with a backside bluntslide 270 out, backside 540, cab 180, backside 720 on the kickers. Another Brit, John Cook, took the 3rd spot with a run that included a cab 180 50-50 frontside 180 out , backflip, backside 360 and frontside 540.

In The Groms category, Lithuanian, Motiejus Morauska won with a 50-50, backside rodeo 540, switch backside 540, frontside 720 right in front of Innsbruck local Lukas Frischmut with cab 180 50-50 backside 180 out, cab 180, backside 360 and a very stylish method air. Place Nr. 3 went to Nico Winkler from Jenbach in Tirol with 50-50, backside rodeo 540, cab 180 und frontside 360.

The youngest competitors, the Super Groms showed very nice 360s, nose and tail grabs In this category Niklas Huber from Germany won in front of Paul Frischhut from Innsbruck and Mark Schrott, also coming from Germany.

A hard battle was on in Girls ONLY category. Here, Belgium, Evy Poppe won in front of Czech Adela Kreisingerova and Bavarian Annika Morgan. With the riding finished, the competition prize giving was held in front of The Grillhofalm, The wild card for The World Rookie Finals in Kaprun went to Billy Cockrell.

The next event at  Vans Penken Park is already this coming weekend with The Penken Battle.

Full rankings on:  www.gromsopen.com