This came in just few minutes ago from our man Jarkko Henttonen on the Freeride World Tour. Jarkko works as a competition judge on the tour and reports to Homeboy Ski blog throughout the world tour. Read what Jarkko has to say after the fourth day in Krasnaya Poliana.

What a day!

We woke up early, before six, for breakfast. At seven we headed to the lifts with a whole bunch of all kinds of gear necessary to build everything needed for the event. Soon all the riders and the crew were gathered together at the bottom station and the atmosphere was great. Everybody knew that it was going to be a very exciting day.
It took quite a bit of time to get all the way up, as the lift really is rather slow. It was great morning to enjoy the fresh mountain air, though, so the trip up was a pleasure, just like the rest of the day. Chatting away with people in good spirits made me feel even better still.

Once up, it did not take us that long to set up all the stuff, and we were ready to start the contest around 9.30 as planned.

Competition day one in Freeride World Tour Russian Adventure, Sochi

What followed was simply put an amazing show of sportive talent. Everybody ripped, some harder than others, and it was cool watching people giving their best.

Some of the personal highlights of the day were watching runs done by such guys like Seb Michaud, Xavier de la Rue and Cyril Neri, who really put the slope into good use. Unfortunately I did not see Aurelien Ducros´s run, as I had to write down my notes for one of the snowboarders that I was judging, but it must have been impressive, as he placed first.

Judging freeriding is not easy. There are so many things one has to think about when trying to figure out how well a rider did. A judge needs to look at line, technique, control and fluidity, among other things. It is also a must for a good judge to be able to remember how everybody did, so that it is possible to compare someone’s run to basically any other ´s run. And that most definitely is very hard, as in each run so many things happen. Thus, I’d say that judging is not fun – it is actually almost unpleasant. But still I think it is good to do it, as it’s also a way to learn about riding. Watching others intensively, trying to figure out everything from snow conditions of chosen line to the performance of the rider is a great lesson not to be missed.

Jarkko Henttonen scored some epic powder in the trees after judging the Freeride World Tour competition

As it’s hard staying still for many hours watching other people having a blast, I went for a couple of runs after the comp myself to burn some of the energy that I got from watching others. I hooked up with skier head judge Jon Örarback and another ski judge, Martin Winkler for the same run I did with the girls yesterday. We still found some nice snow there, even if the place was more tracked than yesterday, and had some really fun turns. After this run Jon had to leave to do other stuff, but me and Martin went for another one a little bit further away.

It wasn´t that far, though, as it took us less than 15 minutes to get to the top of the run. I had to hike some meters a few times, but mostly it was just a very easy traverse. To say that the run was worth the trouble would be a pretty damn huge understatement, as it would have been totally worth it even if it had taken hours. The run that Martin took me, which is called the magic forest, was totally nuts. As I previously wrote, one russian heliguide said to me that this place is the best place in the world for treeriding, and I must say that now I’m pretty convinced.

We rode down about 1000 vertical meters, in huge trees that were perfectly spaced for riding as fast as you wanted. The incline was just as perfect as the spacing of the trees, and the snow was good all the way down. The terrain in the forest is insane, it’s filled with fun features to make all kinds of turns and manouvers on, as well as rocks and what not to jump from. Pillows. I’ve had a few good treeruns in my life and this was definitely one of the best I ever had. I’m not much of a hippie, but I felt like hugging the trees a few times. Which I did not do, though, as hugging a tree riding 50+ km/h is not that bright an idea!

We finished our day at the bottom station where there was bit of event action going, namely announcements of the days results, and some partying of course. Except the day was not finished. We still had some things to take care of, like organization meeting et cetera, after which we headed over to Trikoni for a nice dinner and some more partying. As tomorrow is second competition day, partying was quite mellow, but nonetheless, or maybe because of that, the place was filled with very happy people.

Absolutely great day!

Wake up call is early tomorrow as well, just like today, so it’s bedtime. Most likely after tomorrows comp the partying won’t be as mellow as tonight, so it may well be that you won’t be hearing from me tomorrow night. Then again, who knows…