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.

Thanks to our media partner Onboard for posting this article – we just copied it in here to give people outside of the US the opportunity to watch it: http://onboard.mpora.com/news/kevin-pearces-family-appears-tv.html

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 the Quiksilver 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 »

We received this interview from our media partners at Lime girls magazine and Freeride.cz/girls. Sarka Pancochova is currently in the Swatch TTR World No.1 ranking, and it will be exiting to see if she will keep her lead till the end of the season! If your language is Czech you can follow this season unfolding on Freeride.cz/Girls.

Interview with  Šárka Pančochová

“Sharki” is so short you may stumble over her by mistake in a line for a lift and you won’t even notice it. This girl gets up first in the morning, leaves the hill last and can party hard all night long, riding different tricks than other girls and always speaks her mind. Being a little girl doesn’t mean having little energy.

Šárka comes from a small town in the Czech Republic which lies 200 metres above the sea level. She lives out of a boardbag and is travelling the world while her parents live in the UK.

Being a little girl doesn’t mean having little energy when you do the things you want to. “I’m loving it! I love snowboarding” responded Šárka in the darkness of the car when we were coming back on the highway from the Burton European Open.

We are sitting in your apartment in the Rockresort at the beginning of the Burton European Open but you are not riding today. Why? The main reason is because I’m tired. The second reason is that we filmed with Karkys for a new documentary about me and Martin Černík.

Why are you tired?
I’m tired because I rode three big events in the last five days - O’Neill Evolution, FIS World Cup in Kreischberg and Roxy Chicken Jam.

How is riding FIS World Cup? Is it fun?
Pretty much so, I know most of the riders. But the BEO is much more entertaining!

How was listening to the national anthem after winning the World Cup in Kreischberg?
It was really a big surprise! I didn’t expect it at all.

Was it emotional?
For sure! I listened to the Czech anthem for the first time in my life because I had accomplished something. I was actually singing.

What differences do you see between TTR and FIS?
INCOMPARABLE! FIS doesn’t respect the riders, listens to trainers only, the rider is on the last place. Even the weather is horrible during the event!

Do you think the level of girls’ riding has changed?
The level of girls’ riding has gone a long way in the previous year. Both here in Europe and in the USA. In the semi finals of Roxy Chicken Jam there was nearly nobody who would not do a seven.

What were you plans for BEO?
Doing my run well!

Did it?
Yeah, I was stoked from my runs but judges didn’t really like it but sometimes it is like this. I’m happy anyways!

Would you like to be a queen of the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour at the end of the season 09/10?
Yes, that would be great. I’m after it! But we are only in the middle of the winter.

Text: BeeBee
Photo: BeeBee

Ready for the 6Star Burton European Open TTR has just launched their brandnew video player! New navigation with channels, tags, sort function, featured videos and more will improve the browsing of the dozens of videos aired during each season.

We have quite a lot of new features:

• More video real estate on the TTR homepage and navigation to our different Channels
• Channels: Riders, Tricks, Specials, 5-6Star Events and 1-4Star Events
• A tag cloud and tag search to navigate to important content
• A sort function by views to get to the most viewed videos
• A video search, which also enabled us to include video results in the standard search
• Individual RSS Feeds of each channel to subscribe to
• direct embed URL for faster copy and paste into your website or blog

Read the rest of this entry »

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!

All photos (C) Andy Juegelt

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!

If you haven’t joined the facebook group ‘Well wishes for Kevin Pearce’ yet – here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Well-Wishes-to-our-Frend-Kevin-Pearce/232366118918

To watch some action from the qualification day you can visit our frends over at snowboardermag.com: http://fresh.snowboardermag.com/video/olympic-halfpipe-qualifier-2-mammoth-mtn-video/

Mammoth GrandPrix Snowboardermag Video

TTR welcomes a new and exciting format on the Tour. With this new addition, the race for the Tour Championship title will become even harder and nerve racking than ever before. Skiers beware – snowboarders are taking over cross country now. May we introduce you to CROSS COUNTRY SNOWBOARDING

Seppe Smits at Stubai

Here’s a sweet video from one of our media partners snowbroader.eu from the 6Star Billabong Air & style training session from the Stubai Zoo Park, featuring the current Swatch TTR World No.1 Marko Grilc, who went on to win the event and some of the other hot shots like  Elias Elhardt, Mark Swoboda and this years Air & Style Rookie Challeng winner Seppe Smits.

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!!

Antti Autti lives HERE!!

http://www.vimeo.com/7576397If you wanna see what it looks like to combine a smoke machine, halogen lights, a frozen Finnish Halfpipe, with the infamous Antti Autti, the 08/09 Swatch TTR World No. 3. check out his brand new website  www.anttisworld.com. Mr Autti has released the first installment of his seasons video blogs called ‘Smoking the pipe’, and promises more is on the way!!

The site was launched at the start of the month to co-inside with the official start of the Finnish snow season and major consumer trade expo, Board Expo at Helsinki’s exhibition centre.
“I am stoked to finally get the site live and I can start creating content for all snowboarders out there in the web world” said Antti earlier in the month from the fair centre. “This project has been a long time in the making and I hope that it will give some stoke back to everyone as well as help me develop my snowboarding as a professional.”

Smoking the pipe was filmed in conjunction with Flatlight Films in April of 2010 in Antti’s home resort of Ounasvaara in Rovaniemi Finnish Lapland. The shoot features Antti riding through a smoke screen created by Smoke machines. “The shoot was essentially a test for something bigger we want to do later this season and bring it to you through anttisworld.com. It turned out pretty solid the first time around though so we thought it would make a great early season filler for the site.” Said Antti.

Anttisworld.com will feature regular video updates and blogs from Antti and his friends as they shred the 2009-10 season. Selected trips and highlights throughout the season will be featured in HD, with filming and production being provided by Finnish film company, Flatlight Films.

Anttisworld.com also features a sneak peak at the soon to be launched A+ snowboards Antti is creating in collaboration with NDKreactive, a division of the Nidecker corporation.