Traditional Scandinavian Big Mountain Championships were held on the 12th - 14th of May in Rigsgränsen, Sweden. This year’s competition was already the 17th! No wonder you can see lots of Swedish (and Norwegian) freeskiers in the major ski films every year - they have a long tradition of freeskiing, since the days of early Free Radicals  (and probably even way earlier than that, who knows?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Henrik Windstedt, Image Source: http://www.freeride.se, photo: Nicklas Blom

 

The 2008 competition was shortened to only one-day event due to bad weather (snow, wind, low visibility): qualifications (155 riders alltogether) and two final runs all in the same day.

Looks like there wasn’t any lack of snow but the quality of it remains questionable…chopped up spring slush with occasional icy paths here and there. The rain on the previous days also made its effect on the snow cover. Check out this cool compilation video for example:

http://www.freeride.se/content/2130/

The amount of (hairy) crashes tells the truth about the snow quality. It may look ok from the clip…but the riders at this level won’t do sketchy runs without any particular reason! Btw. the guy about 1.20 - talk about skills (crash to fakie to forward…unbelievable)

The favourites performed as expected: World Freeride Tour Winner, Henrik Windstedt, took the men’s alpine class title. Rebecka Ericsson won the woman’s alpine title. Telemark master was Per Jonsson and snowboard title went to Björn Lindgren.

The interesting curiosity is that the title has once (if I remember right 2004 or 2005?) gone to Henrik’s good buddy, Jon Olsson. Who said the jibbers can’t ski? (And on a more serious note: both of those guys are so good that it is actually even hard to comprehense) 

The Finns had to settle for two second places: three-time telemark champion Joonas Karhumaa (2005-2007) and Kimmo Rauhala in Snowboard class. According to Swedish site http://www.freeride.se, Joonas had the most elegant tele turns througout the competition and was only held back by the points lost in one fall in the qualifications. Damn. Because Joonas is one fine skier - no matter if you compare him to any boarder or alpiner, the guy can do stuff on teles that 99% of the snow riders can’t do. By the way, check out his own site: http://www.joonaskarhumaa.com/. (And, Joonas, if you ever happen to read this - thanks for the “specs” for that jump in Ylläs back in 2005…that happened to be my biggest so far, and I think I won’t go any bigger any more. Picture of the said jump can be found  here, Joonas in charge: http://www.telemarktips.com/Resources/Cover06_9_11.jpg ). Big Up to our man Joonas anyway!

The results, scandinavian Big Mountain Championships 2008:

Men’s Alpine

1. Henrik Windstedt 82,2

2. Christian Björk 76,0

3. Magnus Loo 73,3

Women’s Alpine

1. Rebecka Eriksson 59,2

2. Sara Sandberg 49,7

3. Christine Hargin 48,2

Telemark

1. Per Jonsson 67,7

2. Joonas Karhumaa 59,4

3. Mattias Wagenius 46,3

Snowboard

1. Björn Lindgren 55,5

2. Kimmo Rauhala 42,8

3. Tomas Johansson 41,0

Source: http://www.freeride.se

(Ps. check the Freeride.se site if you happen know any Swedish / “Scandinavian”, a great source of information!)

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If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to our RSS Feed or Email Newsletter. This article was written by Janne Niini and it’s original location is in HomeboySki.Com skiing blog. For more great skiing articles, please visit HomeboySki.Com! 

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