MountainZone.com Home



MountainZone.com Marketplace








Check Out:
Marketplace
Contest
Auctions


Flying Scandinavians Dominate
1999 Warsaw Nokia Takeoff

click
Aviation rule number one is "the number of take offs should be equal to the number of landings."

Recipe of the Day (Do-it-Yourself)
Big Air "a la Warsaw" with whipped snow for 30 persons: Take 20,000 kg of steel tubes and force 40 workers to build a 26-meter high ramp in 10 days. Mix 150,000 kg of liquid nitrogen with 300,000 liters of water and whip non-stop for 20 hours. Cover the ramp with it. Add prize money - $30,000 or more. Now wait for pro riders - they will come and make you happy.

On October 23, the city of Warsaw, Poland, was the scene for the opening of the Nokia Snowboard FIS World Cup season. For those of you who love math and hate geography - Poland is a medium-sized country in Eastern Europe, sandwiched between Germany and Russia, with strong ski and snowboard traditions. According to the Polish Snowboard Association the number of snowboarders in the country is about 300,000 – not bad for a country with a total population of 38 million.

Twenty-nine snowboarders from all over the world, from Norway to Cameroon, including six of the best Polish riders, were invited to participate in this Big Air competition. The event was organized in downtown, at the foot of PKN - Palac Kultury & Nauki (Palace of Culture and Science) – a neo-communist style sky-scraper, which was presented to Polish people by Stalin in the early '50s.

After a welcome speech of Warsaw Mayor Pawel Piskorski, riders started the prelims - two jumps for each. After that they performed two jumps in semi final, and three jumps in final. A team of FIS certified judges were analyzing and digitizing the tricks. Guys from Freaks on Snow out of Austria were playing the role of brave clowns on snowboards between the sessions. Along with that, skaters, BMXers and inliners were having fun in a full size vertical ramp. Spectators were watching snowboarders and listening British rock groups Reef, Countermine, Polish Wzgorze Ya-Pa-3 and American DJS.

click
The festival woke up the entire local snowboard community. They were able to see the take offs and landings and everything in between live as well on a huge TV screens.

Flying Scandinavians dominated the whole event. The winner was Tomas Johansson, a 21-year-old Swedish rider, and King of the Hill '99 in Riksgransen, who without a doubt was demonstrating the best tricks and the highest amplitude from the very beginning of the competition 'til the very end.

"The city of Warsaw provides an excellent setting for the spectacular takeoff of the Nokia snowboard season. In essence, snowboarding is an urban sport, and we have wanted to bring it downtown and mix it with other elements of current pop culture, music and mobile phones. Snowboarding and Nokia share same values of creativity, freedom and individuality. We enjoy doing things differently. We are happy that the city of Warsaw is enthusiastically working with us on this unique event," said Anssi Vanjoki, senior VP of Nokia mobile phones.

Results

1 - Tomas Johansson, Sweden
2 - Jussi Oksanen, Finland
3 - Travis Parker, USA
4 - Sebastien Vassonney, France
5 - Arild Brun Kjeldaas, Norway
6 - Peter Line, USA
7 - Stephane Huard, France
8 - Roger Hjelmmstastuen, Norway

Valeriy Yevseyev, MountainZone.com.com Correspondent