This weekend London hosted the UK's largest winter sports and music festival, which in turned played host to the first FIS Big Air competition of the season, at the Relentless Freeze Festival.
The weekend had kicked off to a great start with the Battle of Britain competition on the Friday and the premier of Deeper in the evening. Saturday saw the return on the big guns to Battersea's huge jump, and though Torstain Horgmo had pulled out there were still plenty of the world's top riders on offer. British teenage sensation Jamie Nicholls plied his trade against the likes of Seb Toutant, Marco Grilc, Janne Korpi and Gjermund Braaten.
After a slow run in to the jump on Friday things had sped up for Saturday's big event with the much talked about double-corked 1080 quickly becoming the standard trick of the day. Not to say that was the only trick on offer, there were plenty of styled-out 7, 9s and double flips on offer.
The Big Air final threw up a few surprises with Norway's up and coming rider Gjermund Braaten not making it through, and one of the favourites, Canada's Seb Toutant finishing down in 12th place.
The aforementioned UK rider Jamie Nicholls flying the flag in the final, and up until the final round of jumps was holding on to a strong third place with a smoothly executed backside double-corked 10. The finals really pushed the limit and though Seb Toots had finished in 12th he was pushing the limit tried to land his double backside rodeo 10 - the trick made famous by Travis Rice at the Air and Style a couple of years ago. Belgium's Seppe Smits looked to have won with a stylish backside1260, though only netted third whilst last year's runner up Marco Grilc took the top spot on the podium with his switch double cork.
Jamie followed up his tenth in the Burton New Zealand Open with a 7th place finish, not bad for a 17 year old from Halifax, with the Norwegians dominating the top ten with second, fourth and eighth places.
Results
- 1st - Marko Grilc
- 2nd - Ståle Sandbech
- 3rd - Seppe Smits
- 4th - Per-Iver Grimsrud
- 5th - Janne Korpi
- 6th - Michael Macho
- 7th - Jamie Nicholls
- 8th - Gjermund Braaten
- 9th - Victor De Le Rue
- 10th - Clemens Schattschneider
- 11th - Gian-Luca Cavigelli
- 12th - Sebastien Toutant
Though current TTR Champion Peetu Piiroinen and pretender to the crown Iouri I-Pod Podladchikov didn't make this year's competition it was a great start to the season. With both FIS and TTR points up for grab Saturday proved to be a fantastic start to the season and on the evidence of this weekend we are in for another cracking year of competitions.