Up on the Kitzsteinhorn Glacier at the Roxy Park, qualifications for the Swatch TTR SIX(6)STAR Roxy Chicken Jam went down today and we had a chance to catch up with some of the girls up on the side lines. Qualifications went down without a hitch, except for the slightly cold weather. Nevertheless, the Top 8 qualifiers will be moving on to tomorrow’s main event! Here’s a run down of the girls who made it:

1. Aline Bock, Age 25, Germany
2. Heidi Paumola, Age 20, Finland
3. Sarka Peneochova Age 17, Netherlands
4. Britte Van der Pouw Age 17, Netherlands
5. Aimee Fuller Age 16, Great Britain
6. Sandy Gecek Age 28, Austria
7. Steffi Hamann Age 24, Germany
8. Basa Stevulova Age 20, Slovakia

Aline Bock took the top spot of the qualifiers with a sick first run that included a FS 3 mute, a BS180 nose, and a rock to fakie on the Wall Ride Box. Aline was stoked on her run saying

“I never expected anything like winning, and it’s sick that I get to ride tomorrow, but I’m kinda scared to ride with all the others, but hopefully it works out fine as well! My winning run was my first run, and was the first contest of my whole career that I didn’t feel under pressure at all. It was super smooth and I was super calm, just thinking well, whatever. All the young girls were throwing down crazy tricks, I was just riding and trying to get my tricks down with easy style. It was funny for me and I’m really stoked!”

We also caught up with Tina Birbaum, the Roxy Chicken Jam Event Organizer, by the judges booth on the sidelines. She was stoked and gave us a few words on the event!

“Hi I’m Tina Birbaum, and we’re here at the Roxy Chicken Jam in Kaprun and it’s a Swatch TTR SIX(6)STAR event. It’s Friday now and it’s a beautiful day at -14 degrees Celsius on the qualification day. The girls are ripping on an amazing course today, we have three kickers, one after the other, and then we have some rails and a quarter pipe. We’re doing pretty well. But it’s a bit slow, but I’m think we’re going to change some things so that tomorrow they have more speed. Tomorrow we’ll have the main session. 5 of the qualification girls will go on to the main session. We have a really good field of riders, Jamie Anderson, who last year won the Roxy Chicken Jam in Kaprun, Torah Bright, who won the TTR World Tour last year, Cheryl Maas, and we have Tara Dakides who won the Roxy Chicken Jam in the States and lots and lots of other good riders. We have really good weather it looks like, and lots of spectators hopefully, and yeah it’s going to be really nice, and tomorrow night we have the Roxy Chicken Jam Party which is always a great thing, it’s right before Christmas, so it’s a Christmas party and all the girls are going to dress up which is going to be fun, and that’s going to be a late night!”

About 2 seconds later, we ran across the park and found Torah Bright! With a bright smile she gave us the low down:

“Hi I’m Torah Bright and we’re in Kaprun for the Roxy Chicken Jam Swatch TTR SIX(6)STAR event, we just have the qualifications going on right now, and right now it’s wafting in out with clouds, and it’s beautiful and sunny, so I think everybody is pretty stoked. It’ll be a good showdown. And tomorrow we have the finals! We have Cheryl Maas, Jamie Anderson, Tara Dakides is rumoured to be here, a lot of good girls are here! It’s a SIX(6)STAR TTR event! The best are here!”

Claudia Fliri was also chillin (literally – it was freezing!) on the sidelines for the qualification action and she gave us some info on the Chicken Jam and her plans for the TTR season:

We are here at the Roxy Chicken Jam in Kaprun, have you got any powder riding in today? Ummmm…not really. I’ve been outside on the side of the slopes a little bit, but actually for me it’s more important to get on it here in the park. That’s the main thing right now.

How’s the park looking? Oh pretty sweet at the beginning it was really really slow, but now It’s getting better, they’re just adjusting the course, but still the last jump is hard to clear, so the set up will be changed for tomorrow, with a little bit of a slight improvement? Haha. So yeah tomorrow we can…work it!

What are your plans for the tour this year? Are you going to try ad make it out to more SIX(6)STAR events? Oh yeah yeah for sure, I’m totally going to follow the tour again, I like to ride TTR, its cool, and for you guys it’s something to measure you know, and that’s pretty sweet. I started my season in New Zealand, and got a lot of points! So it was pretty sweet! But in New Zealand I got hurt so I had to take a break for three months, and I had surgery on my knee. But now I’m back to normal. It still plays with your mind though. I’m getting used to it though!

What do you think about girls riding? Last year it stepped up a lot, do you think it’s going to be bigger this year? Yeah, definitely. But it also depends on the conditions, if it’s not that fast, sure you’re going to do safer tricks without too many spins and stuff. But at the Roxy Chicken Jams it’s just all girls riding, so the girls can show their skills which is the main important thing, especially with huge jumps, so every girl can show what they got which is great.

All photos © Andy Juegelt 2007