You are currently 20th in the TTR ranking list with 3 results. What’s your goal this season?

My goal this season is to rank as good as possible in the TTR Ranking List. Currently, I rank 20^th and of course I want to do better. And hopefully after today I will do better. Then I will also ride the Crans Montana Champs Open, The Oakley Arctic Challenge and my last event will be the one in Saas Fee (Popcorn Wallride) with
Freddy (Kalbermatten) and hopefully that will push me up a little bit.

What does the TTR mean to you?
I Think the TTR is doing a really good job to get more and more professional, with independent snowboarding contests, a super fast updated Ranking List and the whole website looks really good.

What is the best TTR event you've been to and why?
I think the best contest I’ve been to is the Nissan X-Trail. I just like the atmosphere with 60 000 people inside. I actually won the big air one time, there were DCP, Heikki and Travis Rice, everybody was there - that meant a lot to me. But all the other TTR SIX(6)STAR events, like the O’Neill contests and the Burton European Open are doing a really good job as well.

What was the first ever contest you won?
The first contest I won was The Swiss Championships in 1996 and the second contest was the Olympics in 1998. Pretty crazy! And I won a lot after that.

You won the first Olympics in the halfpipe. How has the contest scene in snowboarding changed since then?
The snowboarding scene has changed because it got more professional, but back then it was just a bunch of wild guys that were just snowboarding for the fun and for the love of it.

And now, also because it’s an Olympic sport, there is more money in it, more professional features as well, like physiotherapists and coaches. Of course, the demand for snowboard pros is getting higher every year. And it’s more demanding as well, such as seeing a physiotherapist, training and massaging your back after a hard day of riding as the next day you have to go up and to perform again. With all the filming and all the contests, you just run from A to B during the winter and try to catch the best snow you can. But hey, it’s good - the pipes have gone bigger, the level has gone higher and there are more young guys getting good - so it’s perfect.

How is it to compete with those young kids?
The evolution is really good. For me it’s fun to see how the level was back then and how the level is right now. I mean, I’m 30 now, so I’m really the old guy. Those guys are 12 years younger than me or even more. It’s good to see how they come up and especially that they still get the right spirit towards snowboarding. They want to ride their snowboard from sun up to sun down and ride everything, which is really good, like pipe, quarterpipe, kickers, rails and powder. I think the better you are on every terrain, the better the snowboarder you become. If you just ride gates you’re not a good snowboarder! If you just rider pipe you’re not a good snowboarder. For me, a good rider must be able to ride everything.

It’s kind of rare to find a decent quarterpipe. Do you think your experience can help you to win?
Yes, it’s really rare to find a quarterpipe. That’s why people come a long way to compete in an event with a quarterpipe format. But, it’s getting better compared to back in the days when there was only The Arctic Challenge. Now the O’Neill Evolution has a quarterpipe, the O’Neill Pro Freestyle, the US Open as well. It’s good because quarterpipe is a really special format to ride and it’s a lot of fun as well.


Describe a quarterpipe hit at one of the big QP events this season? How does it feel from in run to landing?
You stand up there, look down and it’s just a long way and you have a big wall at the end. You get the go to drop in, turn your board, start going and you think “should I speed check or not?”. Then you feel the compression, just ollie a little bit and you go “up – up – up - up” till the dead point where you start to turn. You do a fat backside air and then you come down and you see you catch the landing perfect. It just take a few seconds but it’s a crazy good feeling.

If you should forecast a future for the TTR – are we going the right way?
Yes, I think TTR is going the right way. Times are not easy but since the TTR is backed by the industry, I think it’s really good because the industry wants to have independent contests where they can be individual and have their own format. For example, if they wanna have a slopestyle, they can have a slopestyle and still be flexible, if the weather is bad - “hey, we just shift it to another day”. We don’t have to let the riders ride when there’s 90 km per hour wind. Each company has its event and I think it makes it independent, creative and fun to ride. Every contest is different, but still gathered in the same Ranking List. So at the end of the day, when you’re the TTR World N°1, it means that you’re a really good snowboarder, because to get there, you have to be able to manage kickers, halpipe, quarterpipe and slopestyle.