Todays carving action wasn’t too succesfull for Nicolien either but fortunately I was able to do some decent freestyle shooting today. First some shots at the half-pipe (in between parallel slaom heats) and then some difficult shots with slave-flashes at the nightly big-jump practice session.
Tomorrow: half-pipe qualification and perhaps a couple more bigjump shots…
Some images from Today’s GPS event. Jetlag got me up early on the mountain, right in time to catch the sun rising above the hills.
Early rise!
Nicolien Sauerbreij memorizing the course.
Nicolien Sauerbreij in action.
The steep course made for some great crashshots!
Amazing lightshow.
A quick back-and-forth to the halfpipe for a shot of David Mol.
From South-Korea this week I’ll bring some updates on the 2009 FIS Snowboard World Championships.
Munich take-off
Seoul arrival… hmm!
A bit of a thing: driving 8 hours through heavy fog to Munich to catch a plane to Korea. But, it’s a small price to pay for a dream-assignment like this! So, after an easy but mostly sleepless flight (compensated for by gin-tonics) we arrived at Seoul Airport with a gentle but nagging jetlag of eight hours.
Getting close to the contest.
After a mad and three hour VIP Taxi transfer that took us past the edge of the capital city, traffic jams, heavy snowfall and a highway though the mountains (hills, if you live in the Alps) and the crazy Hyundau Sungwoo Resort in Hoengseon-gun in the Gangwon-do province. How about a mounthfull! As the Koreans were convinced I was an important competitor the drive was fast and furious and ended up with a police escort for the final 5 kilomters, cool!
Bell Berghuis and coach Frank Germann discuss the course.
Some high-grade board preparation.
From the taxi it was straight to the slopes to watch Bell Berghuis compete in the Boardercross qualifications. It’s a pity she fell on her second run because she had a very good chance of competing in the finals. Still, a nice day for me photograph-wise. More updates this week as there are plenty more Dutchies competing.
Practice run on the first rollers.
First quali-heat on the massive corner!
Over and out…
Always my first assignment of the year: the Unox Newyears dive in Scheveningen!
Boy, what a great way to start early on January 1st.
With the cold this years edition saw less people joining the dive (about 7.000 instead of the usuall 10.000) but was it a dive indeed: everbody waited to the last second before jumping in en masse! Never saw such a spectacular dive here, altough it was over really, really quickly: just 6 minutes and the Northsea was empty again. Jup, it was cold indeed.
Full gallery here.
Now this is the way I like it: action & party in one big event, that must be the Belgium Ski and Snowboard Open 2008. Why have a contest only when you can go big with live performances by Triggerfinger, Milkshakerz, Luc de Vos, Turntable Dubbers and the amazing guy in the green mask: Dr Lektroluv. All of this in the European Alps version of Vegas: the French partytown Les Deux Alpes.
It’s Sunday now and I have just one day to recuperate from a crazy week of snowboarding that is used as an excuse by about 850 belgiums to party bigtime! The Belgium Champs were never bigger than this, that’s for sure so it’s going to be interesting how they are going to top this one next year.
Enjoy the full series at the Snowjam website or get more info at the VSSF site. Tomorrow I’m off the the last wintershoot of this season in Swedens Åre. Pics soon!
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