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

For all the infos and results about A&S go here: 6Star Air&Style TTR Event Bio Read the rest of this entry »

Elias Elhardt winner of the 4Star Pleasure Jam 09

CONGRATS TO  ELIAS ELHARDT (GER) WHO HAS JUST JOINED THE  TSG TEAM!!

Elias Elhardt inspires with a sensational snowboard season start. At Freestyle.Berlin the crowd went wild during Elias performance. Dominating all other freestyle disciplines he ended up as Crossover Champ 2009. Fully motivated he participated at this season’s first TTR Tour stop, the 4Star Pleasure Jam on the Dachstein glacier, securing himself not only the first place but he also won a 3 week’s surf-trip to Bali with his Backside 1080 Double Cork best-trick-performance. Beside contest success, the 21 year old German also shows great riding with his last part in this year’s Pirate Production „Jolly Roger“. After a 1.5 year break forced by health issues, Elias now really kicks off and does so optimally protected by TSG protection. At winter Ispo 2010 Elias will present his first TSG pro model helmet, hitting retail winter 2010.

TSG Snowboard Team: Elias Elhardt, Gian Simmen, Iouri Podladtchikov, Ville Uotila, Etienne Gilbert TSG Freeski Team: Bene Mayr

Watch out for Elias at the 6Star Billabong Air & Style this weekend!!

Article in one of Germany's biggest newspapers in November 2009

With the Air & Style coming up in Austria and Elias Elhardt kicking a*** on the Tour, I started thinking about the snowboard scene in those two countries mentioned. Also, if you are capable of the German language, you may have noticed that the German snowboarding scene, especially the Olympic team, has been in the spotlight in the media lately (like the article of FAZ you see above).

Why? Well….because apparently there is no German snowboarding scene???!!! Prove me wrong, but at least this seems to be the opinion of some skiing guys that sit in some pretty powerful positions and who, apparently don’t give a darn about supporting the sport and its young athletes. Or how can a country with such a great interest in the sport and so many fans of snowboarding not have a whole lot of successful riders out there at the comps. Austria is the same I guess, especially in regards to the upcoming Olympics: neither Germany nor Austria have a halfpipe hopeful in place. I mean riders like Silvia Mittermueller and David Benedek from Germany, the Aesthetiker crew, Julia Baumgartner, Lisa Filzmoser from Austria and loads more…they are rocking it but mainly in Slopestyle! And still they are underrepresented in the mainstream especially.

Again WHY????? No good possibilities to practice (halfpipe especially), are the good riders mainly going for photoshoots or are we (as in: I am German, too, as you might have guessed by now) simply not good enough??!! I hope to explore this question a lil bit more over the season so watch out for some more blogs coming out. And those of you that are not interested in this topic – go and read another blog

The Northern Hemisphere leg of the TTR Tour is about to begin, and one sure sign of the winter coming are the snowboard video premieres. Last season Elias Elhardt (GER) bagged some great results on the Tour and managed to squeese in the filming for a great part in the Pirates new snowboarding video. Here’s the scope from the premiere:pics: Elias with Lene (itslenejohansen.com)On Friday night the Pirates were celebrating the result of their season quest at home in Innsbruck with a huge party, concert and DJ set for the premiere projection of “Jolly Roger” their latest video. Since Pirates mastermind never submitted to digital attraction, their movie are well known for combining sick actions with artsy quality 16mm filming.This year the crew composed amongst other by riders such as Austrian artist Gigi Rüf, Jibbing limits explorer Hans Ahlund, US prodigy Drew Fuller, tricks machine like Marco Grilc, Osa or Marco Feichtner saw the addition of quite a few talented riders: Juuso Laivisto, Stefan Maurer, Tyler Chorlton, Filippo Kratter, Stephan Maurer, Markus Keller and Elias Elhardt. Read the rest of this entry »

Elias Elhardt, one of the best German riders on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour, and team rider of our indutry partner Rip Curl has a new video out. Looks like the boy keeps himself busy. We are looking forward to seeing him on the Tour next year – maybe he can repeat his success at the 5Star Champs Open in Crans-Montana and the 6Star O’Neill Evolution in Davos. Watch out for this young German talent.Below you’ll find a web report from Elias Elhardt who’s right now shredding in Argentina with the Rip Curl team, exploring team mate’s playground  for the second episode of Rip Curl team video “Welcome Home”. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s part 2 of the interviews from Horsefeathers Pleasure Jam. To remind you, this is what we asked our snowy heroes:
1. What did you get up to in the summer?
2. What are your plans this winter?

Ville Uotila (FIN)
1. In the summer I was back home in Finland and did a lot of sports to keep fit, like biking. And to balance it all out I did a lot of partying with my friends. Then I spent 2 months in New Zealand and Australia as well as two weeks in Hintertux this fall. So there was also a lot of riding this summer.

2. I’m not 100% sure about my plans for this winter, I recon I’ll tour a lot of competitions, and for sure do some photoshoots with my sponsors. I’ll probably go to the States at some point for one month and then Canada, but mainly I’m gonna be based in Europe this winter. Read the rest of this entry »