A small selection of the week can be found in this slideshow,
to see all images from all events: click on the link below.

Full gallery of all (downloadable) images here!

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Last week featured a very cool article on freestyle snowboarding in the Dutch newspaper AD, with comments from boarders, editors, trainers and… me! It’s in Dutch so most people probably can’t read it but all photo’s (except my portrait which was done by Edo) are mine, the piece was very well written (as allways) by Hans Avontuur, one of my favorite (travel) writers in Holland.

Click here to view the pdf of the left page.

Some final images of the past two days before I leave for Switzerland Tomorrow.
Yesterday’s half-pipe saw some amazing action but the light was horrible for photography. Still managed to pull a few nice shots, especially from the winner Ryoh Aono from Japan.

Ryoh Aono 2x

If yesterday was cold, today was Arctic. With heatpockets in both hands I managed to keep my fingers a bit above freezing temp but the conditions weren’t as nice as they were in the first few days. Guess we saw it all this week: full sun, biggest snowfall in 20 years and freezing windy icechills to end the week with.

Last contest was the Big Air which had horrible angles from all sides so no real great images here too. Perhaps tonight for the finals things will be nice with my slaves and all the lamps they’ve put up at the jump.

David Mol (close-up) and Pim Stigter (action)

That’s it for this amazing Korean week, what a great place for such a contest. I’m off, Laax (Switzerland) is next… see you after the weekend.

Some more shots of todays action: the half-pipe contest which sadly turned out to be a bummer for Dolf van der Wal (missing the finals by 2/10 points on a disputable judging score). Some nice shots even though the waether was a bit bleak.

The nights Big Air practice turned out to be fun again while stressing the camera to the limits, using the high ISO range and two slave flashes. Happy with the results and ready for the contest the day after tomorrow.

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…

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.

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…

Anyway, since a photo says more than a thousand words, and I’m to lazy to write down a full report I thought a photostory might be in order. Please enjoy! The full story is featured in this months Snowboard Magazine.

Silvretta Nova

First shot of the day, not a bad way to start out in the overtracked Silvretta Nova region. Bit of scary-ass hiking from Bas Elhorst was all it took.

A bit of black and white freshness, Bas Elhorst again.

A long easy hike, a few relaxing turns and finally: a nasty hike out of the bow. Anne-Fleur Eiff and Martine Veldhoen don’t mind at all. This was perhaps the last bit of untracked snow for miles around. Not any more!

Silvretta Nova actually has quite a good park for Euro standards. The wallride is particularly nice at the end of the day. Bas rocks to fakie.

St.Anton am Arlberg

The drive from Silvretta to Arlberg is a supernice, and not too long, one. Especially when the mountain pass is open (it hadn’t snowed for a while, remember!) you can enjoy some crazy views.

It’s extra fun by the way when the Volvo dealership lends you the new C30 T5, a small (not very practical with tons of snowgear but who cares) 250 horsepowered piece of metal that will set you back about 40.000 euro’s but manages to do a decent 230km/h on the highway with roofcarriers on it and three people and their bags in it…

Timo Hermeler and his girlfriend Irene Bauer live in this mountain paradise and managed to squeeze out some minute pieces of powder. Perhaps it wasn’t that smart to visit this place in the highest of high season…

Expensive resorts have expensive lifts… this whole thing lifts up the gondolas so you don’t have to take some stairs… whatever, it looks cool though!

Scary rocks don’t scare Timo Hermeler.

I love backlight! Irene Bauer too.

Anne-Fleur Eiff.

Perhaps the smallest lift in Austria? It holds six people… barely.

But the view is worth the cramped ride to the top of the Valluga. Normally a great place to find the last bits of fresh snow…

Some of those last bits…

Tijs Goossens in action on the Valluga.

And so is Timo.

So the day ends.

Mayrhofen
This place needs no introduction bus just as our luck had it: the pro-line was closed for some massive building action for the Ästhetiker Wängl Tängl in two weeks. Bummer!

Fortunately rookie Steef van de Meer doesn’t mind using the massive rail instead.

Ahhh… Mayerhofen park pizza.

Too much stuff and Gin&Tonic. It’s nice being a photographer!

No animals were harmed during the making of this Austrian funtrip, some snowboarders didn’t get away that easy… it’s nice having weird layers underneath powder!