Of course this Iouri Podlatchikov, not Louri....

Writing a news piece with the whole of Switzerland partying in front of you is a bit of a challenge, but of course they have more than reason to go crazy today – the TTR 6star O’Neill Evolution pipe contest finished with an all Swiss podium, consisting of Christian “Hitsch” Haller, Iouri “I-Pod” Podlatchikov and new up and coming rookie Jan Scherrer.

Already in his first run, new talent Jan Scherrer impressed with a huge BS 9 at the very first hit and he continued riding like that. Aged sweet 16, he already got cripplers, cab 7s and 9s on lock as if he was born doing them and bagged himself a well deserved 3rd spot at this TTR 6Star event.

But also I-Pod knew how to impress today, with super fast spinning and precise riding, that kept him in top spot until the very last minutes. Especially his second run including a Crippler, Double McTwist and FS 10 got judges and spectators hyped likewise. It wasn’t meant for him today though. As after snapping his board desastering on the coping in his second run, fellow Swissman Hitsch Haller busted out BS 5, FS 10, Cab 10, FS 9 run 5 minutes before the end, overtaking I-Pod by 0.25 points, making the all Swiss podium come true and moving him up to 3rd place in the overall TTR ranking. Instead of hard feelings you only got super stoked smiles, enthusiastic hugs and combined signing of Swiss flags from the spectators.

Surprisingly the normally so super dominant Finnish shred machines couldn’t stomp the way we’re used to and so Peetu Piiroinen ended up in 4th place after he had won the semi finals this morning.

The Women’s Pipe final that went down just before didn’t have as many surprises with USA’s Kelly Clark clearly dominating the field, flying higher than anyone else and scoring full on 80 points in all of her three runs (which moved her up to TTR rank 3 as well). We’re not sure if that also had something to do with the fan club that was screaming like hell when ever she dropped but she more than surely deserved this win for her run including a BS 5, FS 7 and cab 7. She was followed by Slovenian up and coming talent Cilka Sadar and Norwegian style queen Kjersti Buaas, who wasn’t entirely happy with her runs though (“I was running out of pipe! I wanted to do some more tricks…”).

We will start mingling with the party folks now and hopefully be back tomorrow with all highlights, tricks and scores from the big slopestyle finals tomorrow – and maybe even some party gossip…

Shaun rocked up to the Park City pipe and decided he’d have a pop at throwing the mother of all halfpipe runs. Ordinarily such feats of athletic excellence are recorded by some video nerd whose best days of shredding are behind them, but fortunately Forum’s Pat Moore was on hand to follow-cam the Run of Supreme Mighty Awesomeness and give you the best seat in the house. If you’re Pat Moore’s mum, that is.

Dunno how this slipped our attention as it’s been out a while, but we just had to share it again.

For the 10th time, talented rookies from all over Europe will gather at the

If you’re under 20 and rock the pipe, make sure to register to drop into the qualifications on Saturday and maybe even the big finals on Sunday.For the first time this year the Junior Open is part of the TTR World Tour and there’s a total prize purse of CHF 3000.- up for grabs!

As it’s the 10th birthday, Zimtstern and Laax will also care for a special surprise. But to keep the gossip factory busy, we won’t tell you more right now.

Stay tuned on facebook.com/junioropen

With all that great dumpage, the parks on the Kitzsteinhorn are in perfect shape now – inlcuding the brand new pipe!

And to celebrate that, Mellow Parks came up with the truly unique event format Follow The Pipe on February 6th. The riders follow each other through the pipe equipped with a head cam and the fans of the Kitzsteinhorn Mellowpark Facebook page will judge the best run and best produced movie. And the best part: this event is open to everybody!

So if you dare to drop the 5.5m high and 130m long pipe, grab a buddy and take your chance to rock the pipe with him or her for 2 hours, filming each other with a helmet cam by Camterminal.com. The videos will then be uploaded to the Facebook page and the ones with the most “I like”s can win amazing prizes like a helmet cam, Nitro headphones, t-shirts and other goodies.

snowpark.kitzsteinhorn.at

Xaver Hoffmann