Thredbo One Hit Wonder 2012

Anna sizing up the jump

words by Anna Segal

This is the second year that I’ve participated in the Thredbo One Hit Wonder. The event started off in 2009 to showcase Australian snowsports on an internationals stage. Since then it has grown to attract some of the best free-skiers from around the world including, Jossi Wells, Dane Tudor, Bobby Brown and Gus Kenworthy.

The allure of this competition has always been the massive, immaculately built jump which Thredbo’s park crew spends weeks preparing. This year the jump measured 93 ft from the edge of the take-off to the beginning of the landing. This was the minimum distance we had to travel through the air to make it over this monstrosity, safely.

Just thinking about the size of the jump made me nervous, so I tried to keep it out of my mind until I could view it in real life. It was planned that the invited athletes would have a week to hit the jump, which would include one day for the “Peoples’ Choice” competition and one day for the AFP Gold ranked big air event.

With a jump of this size, the weather needs to be almost perfect. The weather gods weren't exactly co-operative, giving us a number of days of wind and/or rain. On the positive side of things, we had two perfect, blue bird days (better than none), allowing the event organisers to pull off both competitions. 

Anna tweaking her tails over the jump

The two days we were able to hit the jump were the two best days of my 2012 Southern Winter season! Over such a humungous jump, I really had time to think about my movements in the air. Once I had the speed dialed and was able to expel the fear from my mind, everything slowed down and became clearer.

So far, I've been the only girl to take part in the One Hit Wonder Down Under. Next year I'll be working with event organiser, Tim Myers, in an attempt to attract more female skiers to join myself and the boys for this amazing event! 


Vote for Anna here!


Anna Segal - People's Choice 2012 from One Hit Wonder Event on Vimeo.

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!

Lauren Staveley: My Concussion

words by Lauren Staveley

All I can remember from the 10th of August is driving up to Snow Park in the morning. The next thing I woke up in the hospital throwing up strapped to a back board in a neck brace.

What actually happened after I drove up the mountain that day is...

I was having a great day on the jumps at Snow Park. I had landed some switch back 5's, a trick I have been working on for ages. My coach said it was my best day of snowboarding all season- until I went too big on one of the jumps. I landed on my heel side edge fell onto my back and then hit my head.

I was never knocked out but I did suffer from retrograde and anterograde amnesia. After falling I kept on asking, "Did I land it?", "Did I grab?" for about 20 minutes over and over. I was taken to the medical centre at Snow Park on a back board and in a neck brace. Because I was obviously shaken up and not making much sense the ski patrol decided to air lift me to Dundedin hospital where I had a CT scan on my back and head. The scans only showed concussion there was no bleeding or breaks in my skull... I was moved from the emergency room at about 8.30pm into the neurological ward where I spent the next two days. 

I was pretty confused about how severe my injury was and what had happened since I had a 12 hour memory blank. The doctors at Dunedin told me I would be ok but it would be a fair while until I could return to snowboarding. I spent the next two days in the hospital doing absolutely nothing. I couldn't stimulate my brain very much so the most exciting part of my day was doing memory tests with the occupational therapist. 

I was released on the 13th and stayed in our apartment in Cardona until the 17th when we flew back home to Melbourne. It was probably the most boring week of my life. When we got back to Melbourne I was still getting headaches and couldn't look at bright lights or be around noise without feeling horrible. 

Once we were back in Melbourne I visited Doctor Makdissi at Olympic Park Sports Medical Centre. He is a sports physician who specializes in head trauma. He cleared up a lot of my confusion about the injury. He told me concussion is a very individual injury, and it is hard to predict exactly how long it will take for me to get better. So for now I just have to slowly ease back into life and not aggravate my symptoms too much. I have been cleared to snowboard but not to do anything where I am likely to hit my head again (jumps or rails). 

It's now the 3rd of September and I am still suffering from minor headaches, I am sensitive to noise and find it hard to concentrate for more than a few hours. Concussion is a very frustrating injury to have, physically nothing appears to be wrong with you. It's not like a broken leg, you can't just put your brain in a cast and say it will be better in 6 weeks. You just have to rest and take everything really slow. Which is frustrating for someone who snowboards as a career, it's been a big change! 

I have an MRI on the 5th of September and then visit Dr Makdissi again on the 7th. We are hoping he will give me the all clear so I can start training again. 

Its been a long ordeal and it's not over yet.  With cases like Torah, Kevin, and Sarah it has really made me think how lucky I was. But the one thing I can take away from this is to always wear a helmet, because my helmet saved my life that day. 

The Chill Series

words by Hanna Fisher
photos by Cassie De Colling

Don’t be fooled by the name, the Chill Series may be one of the most laid-back Big Mountain competitions out there- but it is anything but chill. Set in the rugged club fields of the Southern Alps of New Zealand, the competition is home to some of the craziest terrain around - steep mountains, big cliffs, and chutes, such as “Plake’s Mistake,” named after the legend Glen Plake. 

Hiking the Cragieburn ridge to the start

Add to that not only some of the best Kiwi skiers and boarders, but also international talent from the far reaches of the globe - France, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, USA, England, Russia, and of course, two sweet ladies from good ol’ Australia, and you’ve got yourself some wild skiing. The competition is run over four days and two different resorts- Mt Olympus and Cragieburn. Competitors ride one run a day- their best 3 counting to the overall score.

After a rather tumultuous drive up (I’m talking one lane unsealed dirt roads, no guard rail, and a steep drop off just inches from the wheels), we made it up to Mt Olympus for Day One. The club fields bring skiing back to its’ roots - no chairlifts or even T-bars here - just a rope tow, and an intimidating metal device called a nutcracker. The locals tell stories of pro riders that come to film at their ski field, high, mighty and decked out in the latest gear, only to end up storming off in a huff because they can’t get the hang of the nutcracker! But that did not deter Nat and I, and after a couple of rather unsuccessful attempts on my part, we soon mastered it. 

Mt Olympus

Having only spent two days skiing at the Thredbo Chicks with Stix session this season, I was a bit nervous, and my legs felt more like jelly than the pistons of steel that they should have been (this is probably also due to a distinct lack of pre-season training...next year, I promise I’ll do more...). Luckily, the run was the mellowest of the four days, not super steep or crazy, so I took an easyish line, with two rock jumps of a couple of metres each. I had a little side tap on my behind half-way down (think I just got a bit lazy and distracted) but after finishing I felt the surge of adrenalin and a yearning to go bigger and harder the next day. Nat, being the pillar of strength that she is, conquered first day nerves, and rode a solid line, stomping all her drops.

Day Two, and things stepped up a notch. We had about a 45 minute hike up to get to the start, a huge face full of steep chutes and big cliffs. Oh yeah! I’d been checking out one cliff since the day before, and was pretty keen to hit it. Sometimes things like that just jump out at you, and you can’t get them out of your mind. But it’s often hard to know whether to follow your heart (jump off the big cliff) or your brain (it’s pretty big, quite a flat and hard landing, and a big hole to clear at the base). It can be a fine line between pushing yourself, knowing what is possible, and what you are personally capable of. Getting it wrong can result in serious injury. I know that all sounds a bit serious, but it’s happened before, and so is constantly at the forefront of my mind. We’re not allowed to actually go up and ski the face beforehand, so you just have to look through binoculars, and sometimes, such as at this venue, you get a side view from the hike up (but often you can’t). So it’s a matter of trying to figure out exactly where to take off, where you should land and how much speed you need to clear it. In this case, it was all quite clear cut, no rocks in the in-run or landing, so all that was required on my behalf, was commitment. And commit I did. I skied the top part cleanly, jumping off a nice smaller rock, then fighting that urge to slow down too much before the drop, I stomped it. And that is why I love Big Mountain competitions! The challenge of doing something that scares you, pulling it off, skiing out, and just thinking, man, I love skiing. 

Hanna sending it- courtesy of Chill Series

That night, we drove a small convoy over the pass and in to the Craigieburn valley. Day Three, and another beautiful sunny day. The face was a new one for the competition, with plenty of cliffs, and some steep, steep faces and chutes. Very nice indeed. Unlike at Olympus, nothing really jumped out at me, and I was having trouble picking a line. So I just decided to go for a fairly cruisy run, with a couple of small rock jumps. Turns out most of the girls had the same idea, and we nearly all skied the same thing! When watching the guys later, Nat and I kept thinking, man, we should have gone there, ooh, that looks like fun, and so on. 

Cragieburn

Luckily, we had a fourth day of competition, and got to do just that - with all the girls picking the steepest part of the venue. The wind was howling as we trudged along the ridge to get to our lines, almost losing my balance a few times. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long at the top. I had a nice run, jumping off one super fun cliff at the bottom, and finishing off with a few long hard-packed pow turns. It’s always a bit of a relief to end a competition, so we were all on a high at the bottom. 

Nat scoping her line

One of the things that always stands out to me at these competition is the camaraderie between the girls. There’s usually not as many of us as there are guys, and so we always wait for each other at the bottom of the run, and I always come out of it having made some new friends. It’s sometimes almost a pity that we get scored and that someone has to win, and someone has to lose.

choosing lines at Cragieburn

In the end, Nat and I were tied by our best three rankings for first place (we completely dominated the competition!). To settle the tie they then added up the actual scores from the days, so placed Nat 1^st and I took out second 2^nd. Altogether a successful and fun competition!

driving down to Wanaka via the West Coast

Check out some of the action from Mt Olympus:

Perisher Freeride Session

words by Ali Deane

Another NSW Chicks weekend, and another epic weekend of snow. Chains were required on the way up on Friday night, but it was truly a winter wonderland.

On Sunday Perisher didn’t know what hit it, as over 60 chicks took over on one of the season’s best days – bluebird and beautifully groomed packed fresh stuff. The event saw a big contingent of boarders, in the program’s only second year of encompassing both disciplines.

Headed up by three coaches Olivia Coates, Laura Williams and Ali Deane, some of the boarders branched off for some freeriding out at Mount P with Liv, and Laura and Ali headed straight for the park with a keen group of girls from all over, Wollongong, Canberra, Cooma, Beechworth, and Queensland.

With the sun shining down, and some perfect park jumps to hit, the girls got straight in, some trying table-top jumps for the first time, and others spinning their first 180, and even stepping up to some cab 180’s and backside too.

On the way back for lunch we couldn’t help but check out the half pipe, Australia’s best, and it was looking good. The pipe walls may have been daunting for some, but everyone gave it a go, starting low, keeping it cruisey, and while most of us took a break for lunch, some of the Chicks couldn’t help but keep taking laps.

I was truly stoked when I heard that it was the best day riding for some of the girls, and was happy to play a part in their progression. Sunshine all day, and smiles on dials, what a day!

The lucky winner of a Roxy board!

Zoe talking to CWS

Morning Session

Torie Hamilton-Wilson

After an epic week of snow fall the Chicks with Stix crew were pretty excited to be shredding in 60cm of fresh pow! Not only was there fresh snow, it was also bluebird and with the session filling up weeks in advanced there were plenty of chicks to make the most of it!

In the morning I had a large group of girls focusing on park progression. We took a few laps there, setting goals along the way and watching everyone progress exceptionally quickly. The jumps were the perfect size for 360s- one of the girls Emma was up to perfecting her style only a week after her first try! We continued shredding through the park after lunch, heading to the front valley to see what we could conquer in the big park. I was stoked to watch 10 year old Abi kill it on the rails and super excited to watch her progression in the future to come.

Chicks hanging out on the chairlift

This was the final session of CwS for 2012 until the throw down at Hotham. Every weekend has bought me so much enjoyment skiing with all the girls. It's so cool watching you all attempt new tricks and progressing so quickly. Working with all the girls who have come to the sessions has been amazing, at the end of every session I can see that you have taken away a new skill to work on. Keep being confident and showing those boys down in the park! 

See you all next year.

Kate Blamey and the chicks!

Afternoon Session

Kate Blamey

In the afternoon some of the skiers and I headed over to Blue Cow to ski some real bumps on the Brumby mogul course. On top of blasting through the bumps, my group of 8 also managed to learn and stomp 180s which was a great achievement- especially since no one seemed to keen on the idea when I mentioned 180s in the morning. They all gave it a go and their hard work definitely paid off! 

The afternoon mogul session wouldn't have been complete without fitting in some synchro skiing. While our formation was to pretty at the start it was a challenge to keep everyone turning rhythmically. By the end of the day everyone felt a little more comfortable in the bumps and on steeper terrain- a great success for Team Bumps.

Prize Giving and wrap up

Thanks everyone for such a great day! If you haven't seen it already check out the Perisher Report with CWS!

Blue Skies, Pow and SkierX

Words by Katya Crema

What a few weeks it has been! After an awesome Chicks with Stix weekend in Thredbo, I was pretty excited to show the girls what I do in the ski cross National Championships races at Hotham. This weekend, I've really had the best of both worlds.... 65cm of fresh light powder on Friday and Saturday, then blue skis, firm snow and a great day of ski cross racing on Sunday. I honestly couldn't ask for anything more from a weekend of skiing.

Saturday's race was pushed back to Sunday due to excessive snow (damn... another day of powder skiing!) On Saturday night, the clouds finally cleared and the stars came out, freezing the snow for a great race. Considering the difficult conditions, Hotham managed to build a fast and fun ski cross course overnight. The aim was to hold both races on the Sunday, however we only managed to get one complete race off, and another qualification run (counting for race number two.)

Being the first ski cross race of the season, I was quite nervous to see where I was sitting against the competition (my teammates on the National Team). Back came the good nerves and race butterflies, and I switched my competitive edge back on. I won both qualification runs by over a second, so I was extremely happy with the result. In finals I couldn't quite grab the lead out of the start gate, and finished in second place behind Jenny Owens.

1st Place, Run 2, Australian Skiercross Championships

So all in all, I finished the National Championships with a 1st and a 2nd place. Not a bad start to the World Cup racing season to come! 

Mum and I enjoying the sun at Hotham

CWS Freeride Session Thredbo

Looking over Thredbo Resort

What a weekend!! Whilst a long drive from Melbourne I always love returning to my favourite resort Thredbo, and this visit did not disappoint! As Tori and I corned around the corner from Dead Horse Gap on the road from Victoria the warm glow of the village appeared and with some speckles of snow still suspended from a recently flurry. Now we all know Thredbo has more to offer than just excellent skiing so we quickly popped into a local restaurant to say hi to some of the Thredbo regulars and the rest of the Chicks with Stix crew who had come together to catch up.

Chicks with Stix had the opportunity to connect with local skiers on both Saturday and Sunday in Thredbo and we had a range of coaches and ambassadors there to share their hard earned knowledge and experience.

Zoe introduces everyone to the program

Local snowboarders were able to connect with Ali, Olivia, and guest Roxy rider Biba Turnbull who was fresh off a second place in the Billabong Bro Down in NZ.  Jess Rich, Olivia Coates and Ali Deane took the boarders up for a few leg-warmers, then on to the Merritts park to work on 50-50’s, boardslides, straight airs and 180’s. The snow was perfect – and all the new recruits had a blast picking up a few pointers in technique, park safety and taking the next step.

Ali, Olivia, Biba and Leonie loving the sunshine on the way up for anotherone oo Merritts

Leonie our wakeboarder pops some sweet air

Seeing the girls make small adjustments to their techniques, commit to riding switch, try things for the first time in the park, and conquer goals was really cool, and by the smiles and giggles all day, it was pretty clear they were truly stoked.

Olivia goes over some tips in the park

Tori, Zoe, Katya, Hanna and Karinya led the skiers with local Thredbo ambassador Anna Segal also spending time with the skiers as well as CwS ambassador Jenny Owens.

The conditions were brilliant and we saw a mixed group of seasonal staff, locals and those even from other mountains meet at Friday Flat with one having driven up from Sydney for the day!! There were a couple of familiar faces from last year which was fantastic to see and the progression they had made was incredible! With such a strong line up of CwS coaches and ambassadors both skiers and snowboarders had a variety of skills to develop and experience to learn from. 

Stunning day at Thredbo

Olympians Jenny and Katya shared some skier cross tips through their group on the Saturday and similarly the current Slopestyle World Champion Anna Segal with those keen to learn new tricks in the park on Sunday.  Big mountain skiers Tori and Hanna showed the group how to tear up the Bluff which had a range of natural features and some of the steeper pitch on the mountain. KT mixed it up with a session on how to conquer the moguls below the Basin T-bar which were soft and a great place to progress technique.

Sunday morning saw Zoe and Ali squeeze in interviews for Rush TV and on the mountain they managed to capture some footage of the different groups including some of the girls skiing down huge moguls on the face of the bluff.  This footage will be available on ABC.

Zoe getting down with Rush TV

To cap off an awesome weekend we presented many of the girls with prizes generously provided from our sponsors including Armada skis, Dragon goggles, Shafted ski poles and Roxy which all the girls were super stoked to receive such great incentives. 

Prize giving!

The Chicks weekend at Thredbo could have been any better! We can’t wait for next time, and hope you guys remember the awesome feeling of progression. Keep ripping, and see you guys back on the hill soon, wherever that may be!

Nat Segal: Oh hello my dear friend SNOW

Treble Cone celebrating the snow

Reporting live from Wanaka, we have snow. It may have only snowed 10cms last night but it was the first time I saw snow in the Treble Cone resort parking lot, so I was ecstatic!

I've been in NZ for just over a week, I landed on Saturday 28th in Christchurch and made my way down to Wanaka for the start of the 2012 World Heli Challenge. 

The WHC runs over 2 weeks, we fly 2 compete altogether, one day of freestyle and one of big mountain. It's an amazing event to be a part of. When we are not competing, there are heaps of things going on in and around Wanaka. Today the team headed out to the West Coast for a day of surfing- I was planning on going but after checking the pow alert at 6am I got my ski gear ready and headed up to Treble Cone with Janina Kuzma and Lyndon Sheehan.

Janina and Lyndon

Storm riding is a funny thing- you want to be the first people out there getting first tracks but usually you can't see much. I guess it's the nature of the beast and why bluebird pow days are so treasured!

Nevertheless we found some great turns! NZ in general has been a little dry since I've been here, a warm event melted a lot of the early base and the hills are only now recovering. In saying that, the terrain here is next to none, tussocks, steeps and incredible views so I can deal with a week or two of snow drought.

Powder 8s- you can see them if you look closely!

Snow Happy!

We skied all morning in the clouds, I was on standby to compete, so I didn't want to tire my legs out! After a beautiful long run down one of the ridges we were talking about heading home when we spotted a little friend and a very good omen.

As I was turning around to ski off, Janina spotted this little beauty. He or she was hanging out amongst the tussock. These mammals are an introduced species and over the years they have been hunted down as pests or for sport. Those that live in the surrounding mountains are quite rare- it was a special find. I think there is nothing more beautiful than seeing an animal in the wild, especially a mountain goat.

 A rare spotting- Chamois or Kiwi Chamy

With an even bigger smile on my face than before, we headed down the mountain to home for an afternoon of stretching and hot tubs! The World Heli Challenge Freestyle day kicks off tomorrow at 7am- that means helicopters and powder snow. It's gonna be good!! Keep your eyes open on facebook for all the updates!