caigoose9

AJ Kemppainen, last year’s winner in the Kings category had just arrived from Japan and volunteered to judge the event along with Petteri Liikainen, a local pro.

With -25°C in the back side of north face cheap this morning, it wasn’t hard to motivate the kids to come and participate in the morning briefing inside the warm chalet that served a event base ! 42 riders, all Finns in a small lodge, along with parents rapidly heated up the air and questions such as “ what happens if we qualify ?” were risen. It was a like they already knew that, impressed by their talents the judges would qualify at least as many as last week in Sweden...And indeed, impressed they were!

We had decided to reverse the program ( freestyle first and freeride later) as Ruka wanted to totally close the park for The North Face Ski Challenge in the morning. With temperatures still well under -17°C,north face denali， the riders at the start looked like if they were getting ready for an alpine race, stretching and warming up methodically to not get injured. A good lesson to learn for all riders!

And then the show started ! Jump after jump, landing after landing, we discovered real talents ! You could hear Romain -our tour manager- with William -our starter- discuss about the jumps and riders on the radio. And the judges had exactly the same conversations every time, rider after rider. AJ Kemppainen on his fellow countrymen: “ So many good riders... It’ll be hard to choose !”

After a third run in freestyle cheap north face, we headed to the surprise area chosen for freeride. New snow had come during the week and the descent chosen offered varied terrain and a wide choice of short lines. And again, most of the skiers that stood out in the morning confirmed all the good we thought about them in the second event. A quick warm up / judges meeting later, we agreed on the list of the riders to qualify to the Val Thorens final ( see list below). The flying Finns are coming...