Kevin Pearce - photographed by Cole Barash in Japan
Almost two months after Kevin Pearce’s tragic accident NBC did a moving piece on him. It includes some photos showing him smiling at the camera and discusses the long way to recovery in front of him. Due to copyright restrictions and whatnot readers from outside the US cannot view the clip on the NBC Olympics website. However, someone filmed the whole thing off the TV screen and posted it on youtube.
The clip includes short interviews with Kevin’s parents and his brothers, and even though the sound is weak at times it is definitely worth watching. Keep sending your good vibes to KP, his family and friends on the Well Wishes to our Frend Kevin Pearce Facebook page.
As organizer of basically all things rider related for the 8th Red Bull Nanshan, I had a reasonably busy week for this competition! Follow my day-to-day madness, headaches and good times at Asia’s largest snowboard competition on the Swatch Ticket to Rider World Snowboard Tour.
Day 1- Arrivals
A relaxed day for the riders, but one of the most stressful for me. Basically the whole day is spent on airport pickups. (starting at 7am and finishing at 9pm), Thanks to some recent snow and general awesomeness of air carriers, almost none of the flights arrive when scheduled, messing up my whole transport schedule. I make a few changes, and luckily have some girls helping me out which takes some of the pressure off. As the invited pros come in it’s awesome to see some familiar faces from last year, and we greet each other like old friends. I head back to the hotel with a big group of them, and while they get to check-in and rest, I meet up with big boss / event organizer Steve Zdarsky and setup for a Press Conference that evening in the hotel bar.
Fast forward a few hours past the really exciting press conference, we get to relax with one of the best dinners of the trip – all you can eat and drink teppanyaki. Just as I’m enjoying myself, I hear one of the late-arrival riders still hasn’t been seen at the airport. Uh-oh. Meanwhile, we have a few drinks, get to know each other and are reminded of that ‘school trip’ feeling from back in the day. A relaxing group foot massage follows, and mid-massage I hear the missing rider has arrived – but his boardbag hasn’t. I decide to sort it out tomorrow. Finally by 1:00am I drop a few guys off at a nearby club to continue partying, and head home for a little bit of sleep.
Day 2 – Sighteseeing
I join the guys for an awesome buffet breakfast at the Hilton. I’ve got to make sure all the guys are checked out, bags packed by 11:00am, but I’m not surprised when by 10:30am there’s still no sign from last night’s ‘clubbers’. I get their room number from reception and pay them a visit – as expected, they’re still in bed, with some uneaten room service in the doorway.. haha.
We board the bus and head straight to the Olympic’s Bird’s Nest Stadium to check out the snow-world-park-thing they have going on there. It’s actually a pretty solid effort! Snow had been blown throughout the stadium, and just outside was a ski slope made out of scaffolding. Some of the riders opted to ski with hilarious results, a few hungover riders slept on the bus and some just wandered off. I make a call to the airport’s lost baggage claim to try and track down the missing boardbag. They’re not too sure about it, but tell it’s still in San Francisco and might arrive tonight.
A few hours later, and we’re on our way to the ski resort. The hotel is expecting us and we’ve made sure they pre-heat the rooms this year, the weather is freezing! It’s pretty funny watching the first-timers see the man-made ski resort for the first time, and you can feel everyone getting more excited.
A delicious and cheap Chinese dinner with the local crew allows everyone involved in the competition to bond and familiarize themselves. We have some hassle trying to get an official receipt for the meal, and they tell us to come back tomorrow. I wish I could relax sometimes!
Day 3 – Practice day
Ah.. today I don’t have quite as much to worry about. The riders are left to themselves for a full day of practice, however every 10 mins there’s another question. “Where can we use the internet?” “Can I get my board waxed?” “What time’s lunch?” Despite all this information being in the rider’s booklet I so thoughtfully prepared and handed to them on the first day.. I send them in the right direction. There’s still no sign of the missing boardbag, so I make another call to the lost baggage department. Apparently the bag missed its flight last night (bags can be so unorganized!) but is on its way now and will be delivered to the ski resort that night. I politely emphasis how important this bag is… the rider’s been forced to practice on a borrowed board in borrowed pants, boots, and gloves
Another good local dinner is followed by more desk work. I sit down with the head judge and we develop an excel file that will streamline tomorrow’s judging process. Thankfully my girlfriend has come up to join for the weekend, so after a long day I finally get to lie down next to her! I get a phone call at 2:00am letting me know the bag has arrived and will be delivered in an hour. I try to sound enthusiastic about this.
Day 4 – Competition, Day 1
I wake up, half excited and half stressed. Today will be non-stop madness, but at the same time I’ll get to witness and help run the largest Asian snowboard contest on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour… which still stokes me out.
I get about two minutes to make a breakfast sandwich from the buffet selection before having to rush off. I get briefed on what the day’s plan of attack is, draft today’s press release, set up the judges booth for scoring and do a hundred other things that come up. The weather is great, there’s no wind, and eventually I get together with the judges to check out the practice runs. We’re all impressed by the level of riding and the vibe today is super good! My good friend Eric is doing a wicked job at MC’ing the event in Chinese, and the crowd is obviously hyped.
As the competition gets under way, I’m quietly proud that the judging system we made last night is working flawlessly. I’m even more stoked to see fellow Kiwis Nick Hyne and Nick Brown make it through to tomorrow’s finals – especially as it was Nick Hyne’s bag that was missing! Tobias Karlsson, however, injures himself on his second run, and as the scores are tallied up we’re left with quite the predicament. Tobias’s first run was good enough to qualify him, but with a suspected broken rib and no word back from the doctors, it seems unlikely he will compete tomorrow. We decide to bring through the 13th placed rider, which by chance is Chinese rider Wang Lei. The media and Chinese fans are ecstatic, and it’s great to have a local rider in the finals.
No time to see the announcement though, as we’re under tight deadlines! The second the qualified riders are announced, I head straight to the office to write up the press release on today’s results. I’m halfway through, and suddenly realize I can’t remember what the first placed qualified rider’s run consisted of! I hunt down the head judge, and he goes over the tricks with me. One hour and three-hundred rewrites later, and I send the draft to Steve – he gives it the OK, my colleague Jess translates it to Chinese, and we blast it out to the media – only 2 hours after the competition finished! Jess and I high-five, we’re a good team.
There’s still lots of work to do – as the riders head for dinner, we stay in the office; going through pictures, updating the judges sheets, sending out our own newsletter, drafting tomorrow’s press release, it seems to never end! However by the time the crew gets back from dinner with leftovers, we’re finished, and have a quick snack and beer before calling it a night.
TO READ THE FULL STORY CHECK BACK TO THE TTR BLOG THIS WEEKEND – THE SECOND PART UP AHEAD
It’s a foggy Wednesday afternoon in January. The Intercity Express train to Saalfelden, Austria is packed with girls travelling with boardbags and big backpacks. At the train station they get off with their luggage and enter several busses that are waiting for them to take them up to Saalbach-Hinterglemm. They seem a little tired from the long trip, but look relaxed, happy and smile in anticipation when they get off the bus in Hinterglemm to check into their energy efficient hotels. There is very tasty organic, locally produced food for dinner, which powers them for the three long days of hiking the park that lie ahead of them! Those girls are the world’s best female snowboarders and they are traveling to the Roxy Chicken Jam — 2020.
“Don’t destroy what you came to enjoy!” – credo of theQuiksilver Foundation
We write the year 2010 and only very few of the organizers, media or riders came by train and public transportation – among them Kjersti Buaas and Chanelle Sladics. The North Americans and riders from other continents had to take long-haul flights. Food was mostly not organic; overheated hotel rooms and diesel-guzzling snowcats far from energy efficient.
At least no cars had to be used for the duration of the event as hotels, snow park and parties were all walking distance from anyone’s accommodation. After all there were some first very important steps towards a greener Roxy Chicken Jam. It’s called going carbon neutral! And it’s about taking initiative and starting somewhere. Read the rest of this entry »
The Swatch TTR 6Star Burton European Open Snowboarding Championships 2010 went down last week in Laax, Switzerland. 08/09 TTR World Snowboard Champion Peetu Piiroinen won the slopestyle with style and consistent runs, closely followed by Norwegians Mikkel Bang and Gjermund Braaten. Scandianavian podium dominance could only be stopped by Switzerland’s Iouri Podladtchikov. Check out the photos in the slideshow above and keep your eyes glued to www.ttrworldtour.com to find out what happens next at the 5Star Canadian Open, the last big TTR Event before the Olympic Winter Games 2010 in Vancouver go down.
A little collection of photos from the Swatch TTR Women’s 6Star Roxy Chicken Jam 2010. Some sick riding went down in Saalbach Hinterglemm and Sarka could still defend her Tour Lead against Cheryl, while Enni Rukajärvi surprised judges, fans and media with solid riding. Video content from the finals is coming soon!
Very good coverage of the Mammoth Grand Prix by our friends over at GrindTV.com. It’s also touching on Kevin Pearce’s injury and all the support from the FRENDS crew.
All of TTR staff’s hearts are with you as well KP!
And it is a merry Christmas again to all of you – our media partner Method has just finished their video edit of this year’s Air & Style. The video is also available on ITunes. If you haven’t seen it yet, go to the following link to www.method.tv and check it out.
Travis Rice was one of the major contenders that came out swinging the shred blade looking to take the top spot. See how things unfolded from the begining to the end and everything in between.
Last weekend’s Swatch TTR 6Star snowboard mega-event, the Billabong Air&Style Innsbruck 2009/II was one of the highlights of the 09/10 Season for sure. The double cork factor has changed snowboarding in a groundbreaking way and there is no end in sight in terms of variations. We made a little slideshow about the Rider’s draw on Friday and Saturday’s event night with focus on the riders for you to enjoy below.
To watch all the great video content including individual runs from pretty much every rider in the contest go to: http://freecaster.tv/ttrworldtour
You might have noticed that the TTR World Snowboard Tour Homepage changed over the weekend. Most notably the new Facebook box. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. We want your visit to the site to be a better experience – no matter if you are here to get your job done or to sit back and enjoy the latest video. Read the rest of this entry »
