Author: John Wayte
After a long coach journey through the night to Edinburgh, Friday morning kicked off with the men’s and women’s slalom at 8.30am. With hundreds of men and women competing, only the fastest 30 men and women qualified for their second run and despite feeling pretty ropey our racers put in a great showing, with Alex Ley finishing top in Leeds and placing 50th nationally.
Unfortunately our best female racer, Emily Pocock, was unable to place, straddling the last gate, but she hoped for more in the grand slalom. After a short briefing to the riders the syndicate sponsored slopestyle took off in the afternoon. The format for the competition was to be two runs, best run counts, judged on style, amplitude, execution and difficulty. Riders were given a kicker, a flat box and a c box to play with – pretty difficult for our snowriders who are used to the snow. The standard of riding this year was of a high standard with some of the boys pulling rodeo 5 japans, hippy killers on the boxes and multiple backflips.
Harry James our best freestyle skier pulled a huge frontflip out of the bag – primarily a rail skier, we are looking forward to what he has to offer at BUISC in February. The girls this year also threw down with some huge backflips, stylish grabbed threes and 270s onto the boxes. Our female freestyle skier Sophie Offord unfortunately missed out on a podium spot by one point so we are excited to see her step it up in the next competition.
After about two hours of sleep, the Snowriders were back on the bus on at 7.30 the next morning. The giant slalom started the day off, with all of our racers putting in valiant efforts on the dendex., in which Emily Pocock took 7th narrowly missing out on BUCS points. The afternoon saw the duals and the boardercross, with our female snowboarders, Julia Winslow, Daisy Maddinson, Grace Hartley putting in some awesome runs.
Unfortunately going out in the first round so hopefully with a little more sleep we are looking to stepping it up this weekend at Kings. The afternoon consisted of the big air sponsored by Freeze Pro Shop – an awesome competition to spectate, with some sweet prizes up for grabs. Again with a high standard of competition, the level of riding this year was insane. The boys threw down some huge switch 7s, stylish corked 5s and even some doubles were being thrown. As for the girls, Lucy Stevens from SKUM attempted a 540 – never done before in a women’s uni competition. Our female rider Sophie Offord again made it through to the finals with a confident 360 and mixed it up with a stylish hand-drag 3.
Following the finals, freeze pro shop put on a Pro Am demonstration where we saw some of the best riders in the UK pull some of their most stylish tricks. On Saturday evening the BUDs ball concluded the weekend. Despite a 45 minute turnaround, suits and dresses were donned, and then a classy evening of wine and cheesecake ensued! A massive well done to all of the Leeds competitors for their efforts and the spectators for cheering them on for hours on end, regardless of the weather. We look forward to our competitions ahead and hope we can improve at BUISC and main event. For anybody interested we run weekly training sessions for both race and freestyle.