Chicks with Stix Season 2012 Throwdown at Mt Hotham

 

words by Zoe Jaboor

Wow – what an unreal weekend we had at Hotham for the Chicks with Stix Throwdown. The weather gods definitely made us work for it this time with gale forced winds, road closures, and trees falling down all over the place. 

At last, after meetings with the very friendly crew at Hotham events and the amazingly talented park crew, we got an awesome course set up just next to the Swindlers park. Our course ran down a small gully and had lots of little natural and man-made features scattered throughout. We had a flat box, a small wedge over a tree, a hitching post with quarter pipe, a berm with a flat bar, a hip jump and a single barrel down bar.

Shinae McGowan rocking out through the park in pink!

We had 24 competitors registered for the Throwdown, girls with all kinds of different levels of experience. For most competitors this event marked their first ever competition. L

uckily, we had loads of seasoned coaches on hand to dish out advice and guide the chicks through the course. They included:

Hannah Studd (Chief of course) worked with Koppa from the Hotham Park Crew to put up a progressive and fun course that girls could get creative, and learn on.

Ali Deane and Erin Height singing out across Hotham as the announcers for the day. I think we can all agree that they girls were absolute naturals. They kept the event alive and energetic even through the wind, snow and fog.

Merrin Jokic  (Head Judge) organized Mimi, Lucy and myself in scoring the girls runs through two qualifying runs and one finals run.

Anita Jaboor (Chief of results) worked with Amy and Scotti from Hotham Events to compile the scores to get the final result .

Wennie Tan showing us her rail skills

One of the highlights of the day, aside from watching the chicks throw down, was the presentations at Swindlers. We had some amazing prizes to give away to our new CwS champions. Armada have come to the Chicks with Stix party for the last two years and their amazing support shows their strong commitment to women’s freestyle and freeride skiing. 

Junior Women's Podium

Open Women's Ski Podium

All girls on the podium for the Open Ski category took home a pair of Armada skis! Our winner, Dani was luckily enough to get to choose her dream skis.She went with the TSTw – EXCELLENT CHOICE!. 

Open Women's Snowboard Podium

Other prizes included a Roxy Magne-Traction snowboard, with Roxy bindings, Dragon sunnies and goggles, Shafted ski poles, Dalbello jackets, and heaps and heaps of Roxy and Dragon beanies, tees, hoods, scarfs, buffs, and stickers. To cap off the presentations Merrin got each and every girl that was in Swindlers off their chairs, and up and dancing for a “shuffle off”.

I always get such a buzz from holding Chicks with Stix events. There is so much positive energy between participants, coaches and volunteers. It’s a real team effort to get these events off the ground.

CWS has an amazing group of coaches!

I would like to say a big thank you to Mt Hotham for having us come and visit twice throughout the 2012 season. Claire from Marketing, Koppa from the Park Crew and Scotti in Events were all so patient and supportive of our program which has lead to its success.

Thanks so much for everybody who was involved in this years event. I look forward to seeing you all again in 2013 for another awesome season of Chicks with Stix.

Check out the awesome edit of the event from Mt Hotham!