Red Bull Linecatcher Day 1&2 Review

The plan for Friday was to check out the Qualliface so we had to hike up for an hour on the backside of the mountain. At the beginning we checked out the first start but the snow seemed to be crusty and the rocks in the landing scared me a bit so I decided to begin my run from the second start. So we had to walk down using the tracks of the shapers to have a clean face and good landings! On the way down to the village I was impressed to see such a sick snowpark. They had three railparks and one sick kickerpark (which was not ready jet) and we had a lot of fun cruising down!

 on the way to Vars we had a little powerlunch at the Mec

 the qualliface from the bottom

 Bine with a biiiig smile on the way up

 checking out the first jump 

At the evening we had the bib draw down in the village and fortunately I picked a good one and I had to start second right after Paddy Graham so I was sure to have clean landings without tracks. Back at our apartment I checked out the pictures of the face with my buddy and teammate Davide Cusini a last time. After some hours of sleep we had breakfast at 6:30 and went straight up on the mountain and hiked again ;) And at 10:00 the contest began.

 on the way up again

sunrise

me almost on the top

drop in from the backside

I started my first run with a sketchy switch right 5 off the first cliff into a misty 7 at the second one and at the end I did a 360 on a windlip. I was super surprised that it went that good and right after I took my first heliride of my life to get to the top. On the second run the start order changed so I had to start penultimate. I wanted to do the same run as before just a little better to get sure to qualify but then I landed into the tracks on the first cliff and so I tomahawked down :-)

 paddy throwing a bio 7 mute on the first cliff

 me doing a turn

 me doing flat 5 on my second run and trying to land switch

 

big backflip of Davide Cusini aka JJ Jefferson

My Italian friend Davide Cusini aka JJ Jefferson had an awesome run with a huge backflip on the first cliff into a cork 7 on the second one and at the end he gapped some smaller cliffs and went pretty far! He ended up pretty close right behind me on the 4^th place.

That was great day for me! First time flying with a heli, first time competing at a comp outside of a park and then I qualified 3th… just an awesome feeling!!!!!

         3th me                 1st Leo Taillefer           2nd Nicolas Vugnier

Sean Balmer filming with cameras for the Downdaysnews

TYEAH