I think last Wednesday could be summed up in two ways. In terms of the day and the skiers it was mother bloody f**king amazing, and that's putting it lightly. As for the spectator turnout it was f**king pathetic.
Focusing on the good let's start with f**king amazing.
For the past three years, win or lose,
Courchevel has always brought ìthe wild cardî to the boss des bosses resulting in an exhilarating, exciting, refreshing experience. Why all these adjectives to describe an old school bumps competition? In a world of freeriding, skier X, slope style and half pipes, bumps have been relegated to the history pages. Something that brought you closer to your friendly orthopaedic surgeon.
It brings out the best of 13 seasonnaires, of mixed skiing ability, most of who have never met, together in the spirit of competition and pushes then down a steep nasty mogul course racing head to head against one of 4 other resorts.
The selection process is unique in that it involves carefully choosing 13 highly qualified mogul instructors and then at the last moment, as they all drop out, have to choose a selection of people who are not completely aware of the situation they are getting themselves into.
Best summed up by
Odge (Francis blanc1650) who when originally asked flatly refused to participate. After 8 pints of Mutzig, the alcohol altered his decision making process.
Only when he viewed the course was he heard to say 'I hate moguls; I hate big air, what the fuck am I doing here?'
Our first race took us up against Chamonix who had already beaten Meribel earlier that day. After 13 racers had gone down the course Chamonix emerged victorious 8-5. After a short break we then raced Val d'Isere. After victorious runs by
Benoit, Raphael, Jen, Dave, Craig, Spaz and Pat helped
Courchevel win by 7-6.
In the final round we raced against our 3 valley nemesis Meribel. The team pulled out all the stops. Benoit and Raphael were again triumphant on their telemarks, Harriet secured a well deserved win, 24 hours after being badly concussed in the board park Olly pulled off a perfect back flip.Matt was replaced by
Roddy(flexi) who managed to uphold MattÃs tradition and wipe out while flying over the kicker.The shock of the day came from Euan who took the final kicker with too much speed resulting in the biggest jump and scariest crash. After 5 minutes he thankfully made it back onto his feet but eventually required a bloodwagon to get down the mountain. Spaz managed to nail a good jump. Finally Posh Will secured the last of the 7 points needed for a win and a well deserved 3rd place.
I would like to note that although, due to space, I have only focused on the winners I would not like to take anything away from any of the racers, who all gave 110% throughout the day.
The Final standings 1st Zermatt (7-6)
2nd Chamonix,
3rd
Courchevel (7-6)
4th Meribel,
5th Val d'Isere (9-4)
6th Val Thorens.
