Röldal Freeride Challenge 2009

DOWNLOAD THE FINAL RESULTS OF RFC HERE

The last Freeride World Qualifier event of the winter season 2009 took place in Röldal, Norway in the end of last week. The competition, Röldal Freeride Challenge, had gathered together a solid crew of great riders from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria and France. RFC is not only the last FWQ of the season but also the final of Norwegian Freeride Cup, the only national tour in Europe. RFC is also the sister event for the Russian Adventure, the first FWT event of next winter, to which the best performing non-FWT riders from Röldal get an invitation. So, there was definitely a lot to be won, stakes were high, and thus the tension at the competition was very high, too.

Event was held over three days, on three different venues. First day was a qualifier with about 60 riders, half of whom proceeded to the two day final. The level of riding in the qualifier day was already very high, even if none of the FWQ or FWT riders present took part. Nobody was holding back, everybody did their best. There was many killer runs by unknown local riders, who could challenge practically any rider in any of the tour events. After the day Thibaud Duchosal, French FWT rider, was shaking his head in amazement, wondering what the next two days would be like.

The next two days were better, of course. RFC is famous for always having great weather, and the reputation proved to be right. The second day was held in great weather on a approximately 350 m high venue that provided the riders with infinite amount of features to play on. Since the previous night had been cold, the snow was very hard in the morning and organizers together with the riders made a mutual decision to postpone the start of the event till afternoon. After bit of waiting the snow melted and got bit softer, and the show got underway.

What followed was a display of most incredible freeriding talent. Everybody, every single rider went as hard as they could. After the day two Duchosal, who was in the middle of starting list for ski men, said that seeing his fellow competitors do their thing made him realize that he really has to step up his performance in order to have some kind of a chance to do well enough to make it to the final.

Huge drops and fast descents were the order of the day. Norwegians are known for very hard charging, but it seems that on their hometurf they go even harder. Maybe it´s the clean water or the pure norwegian air, but anyways the vibe among the norwegian crew is like no other, it´s unique: they are pushing themselves and each other, in a very positive way, to always do their best. They, as individuals and as a group, want to perform as good as they can, show their talent, skill, ability and determination for themselves, their peers and the rest of the world, and it is very impressive to see them ride.

It is difficult to point out single riders from this group of hardchargers, but some of them stood out from the rest anyways. Most impressive rides were done by an FWT rider Torgrim Vole and Magnus Tveito, a norwegian freeride hero, who´s only switched to alpine skis from telemark set-up for this winter. Both Vole and Tveito went for fast runs and massive drops with clean landings, and by doing this they landed on the first and second place of the day one of the final, with Tveito leading Vole by 0.1 points. Right on their heels were swede Per Huss and austrian Stefan Häusl, both of whom had intentions to beat the rest of them.

The final day dawned with blue and clear skies and no wind. The start was scheduled at 13:00. As it had been cold at night, and since the final face only gets sun later in the afternoon, the start was again postponed for a while to let the face get into better condition. The three judges, Jarkko Henttonen, Marthelise Karlsen and Cato Laegreid, did runs on the face to check out the conditions. Cato´s run was a good warm up for the day and told of things to come: he rode the top section of the face with only a couple of fast hard turns, rode past the huge cliff band that separates the top and bottom parts of the face, skied to the last cliff and pulled a huge back-flip, half blinded by the mask of his polar bear outfit. Clearly it was the most impressive forerun on any event ever, and it amped up everybody at the start gate, which of course was what the polar bear intended. Once the conditions were deemed to be good enough by mr polarbear and his colleagues the final started.

It was obvious right from the start that the final was going to be something extraordinary. Snowboarder girls went for it harder than the previous days, making good turns all the way and finding nice sized cliffs. Once they were done, male boarders took over and the charging really begun. Finnish rider Niklas Hollsten was the first rider of the day to venture above and over the huge cliff in the middle of the face. The cliff band is more than 10 meters high on all possible exits and once on top of it the only way out is to ride over the edge and fly through the space below. Niklas went for it, starting his run off the top cornice with a nice 180 which was followed by a good sized drop and a hard cruise to the top of the big cliff, which he launched without stopping. Hollsten almost stuck the jump, only butt-checking the landing slightly. Best board performance of the day was however done by ex-pat swede, David Underland, now representing Norway. David opted to leave the bigger hucks for skiers, as he judged the conditions to be unfavorable for a boarder to stick the landings. David said later he chose the easy way out, but nonetheless his smooth, fluid riding, hard, well executed carving turns and several good sized cliff jumps with stomped landings paid off, just like the day before.

Unlike in any of the other FWQ events, Röldal has also a category for telemark skiers. After all, Röldal Freeride Challenge is the final of Norwegian Freeride Cup, and telemark skiing is an integral part of it´s great norwegian heritage. Telemarking is the original form of skiing dowhill, and the norwegians want to preserve and keep the sport of the free heel alive and kicking, and this is exactly what happened in the RFC. In the tele final there was only three riders, and of those three the best performance of the day was done by one of the greatest champions of the sport of Telemark, Christian Mökleby. Christian has been charging hard for almost two decades, was the winner of the first edition of RFC and was not about to give out nothing but the best of himself. "Mökle", who is not only a hard charger but also one of the of the keepers of the true spirit of the sport of loose heel, skied fast and smooth, making proper tele-turns all the way, jumping big and sticking his landings. In the end of it, he found himself on the highest spot of the podium with Ove Nestvold, who, just like Christian is, is bound to be one of the torch bearers for the original and the most noble form of skiing.

After the freeheelers it was skier women´s turn to show what they are made of. All the five girls were just as amped as everybody else, and the fact that the current Freeride World Tour Champion, Ane Enderud, was one of them, made it that much better. The greatest threat for Ane was swede Rebecca Eriksson, who was on the second place after the first day. Rebecca ripped it up on the top part of the face, going off a few cliffs, with clean stomps and then opened it up at the bottom. A great run that took Rebecca to lead. Enderud was on a very clear lead after her first final run the day before, and most likely would have won the comp with a just above average performance, if she just would have chosen to go for a mellower ride. She chose not to, did not hold back at all, and went for it just like everybody else. Loosing a victory is one thing, but not giving your best to your own countrymen and women, holding it back in front of your own crew, your best friends, is something else. And it is something the norwegians most obviously are never going to do. They won´t allow themselves to, nor do their allow their friends to. They just push it as hard as they can. Most probably Ane did not event think about competition tactics, she just went for it full force, really showing everybody present that viking girls are not scared at all, that they are hardest of all. Unfortunately in the middle of her run she for some reason lost her ski, and that was it for her, and the day and the victory was Rebecca´s.

By the men´s final the tension had really build up, it was as if the whole place was electrified by the high tension power lines that go through the Röldal venue. Each and every skier in the event delivered big time. Even Laurent Chouard from France, who had hurt his miniscus, was so amped from the whole thing that he did not care about the pain but just ripped the face up, chucking big airs off cliffs and wind-lips. Many of the rider´s opted to go to the huge cliff band that Hollsten had opened up earlier, and a few of them stuck it clean, a hard task to accomplish on somewhat bad snow conditions. Some were less unlucky and there was a couple of hard tumbles. Nobody got hurt, though.

One of the more creative lines was done by Christen Bryn, the secretary general of norwegian freeride team. Bryn rode to the edge of the big cliff, hopped on to top of an fallen icicle and launched into space. He was very close to sticking the landing, and had he done it, he most likely would have ended up at the top five, but the impact was so hard that he lost his balance and then his ski and he was game over.

Others were still game on, and full on, too. Austrian rider Stefan Häusl, who was on the fourth place after first day, knew that in order to beat his competition and get an invitation to the Russian Adventure FWT, he had to do his best run ever. And that´s exactly what Stefan did. He rode really hard, putting all his power into each turn, going over the cliffs with full speed and stomping all the landings like nothing. He clearly took the lead. After Stefan there was three more riders coming, and none of them was not about to give in either. Per Huss charged it just as hard as Häusl, but was a bit unfortunate and did not stick his run as well as he could have, and Häusl kept his position.

For the two guys left on the start, divided by 0.1 points, it was obvious that in order for them to stay true to the spirit of this absolutely fantastic event, and especially to win it, they had no other chance but to super charge it, step it up and take the whole thing to next level. This is exactly what Torgrim Vole and Magnus Tveito did. First it was Torgrim´s turn. He started his run with a nice drop, then smoothly traversed to the skier´s left hand side of the face to the most exposed part of it and simply tore it up. Torgrim dropped a good 8 to 10 m cliff in the mid part of the face, very exposed above a steep snow ramp that ends up in a huge overhanging rock band. Without any kind of hesitation Vole skied down the ramp to the huge cliff below and without a pause rode over the edge with speed and flew into the space below. He kept his form all the way trough his flight, even if he later said that about half ways through he had a brief moment of doubt. Nobody watching, though, could not see nothing else but stunning work of the strongest mind. When he finally, after what felt like an eternity, touched down, he just skied away like nothing, straightlining it to the bottom on mach 4. Everybody simply went wild: people were cheering, screaming, laughing and crying at the same time. Even the judges who have seen it all, lost it. Nobody was left untouched. The crowd jumped spontaneously up and ran to meet this remarkable rider when he skied to the finish line. Each and every person who saw Torgrim´s ride will no doubt remember it for the rest of their lives.

However, it was not over yet. There was still one man, Magnus Tveito, standing up at the start, and he was not about to give up the victory to Vole for free. He was ready and willing, geared up and ready to go. Magnus was so charged that he was screaming from the top of his lungs before dropping in. He knew that to beat Torgrim he had to give everything he had to give, and he was going to do it. His plan to beat Torgrim involved the hairiest formation of the face, a gnarly, huge double in the middle of the whole thing and that is where he went, fast and smooth. To set things right before committing himself to the leap, he slowed down for a split of a moment, almost, but not quite stopping, aiming at the right line, and then he skied over the edge. The first drop to the snow ramp above the huge cliff below was about 10 meters high, and Tveito stuck it with no effort what so ever. The double has been done before by Kaj Zachrisson and the likes, but each and every one of them have always checked their speed on the snow ramp between the two cliffs, to make sure not to go too far. Magnus had no such intentions, he did not want to kill any of the speed he gained from the first drop and he just went straight and launched into the space like a rocket than reached the speed of light. It is hard to imaginge what it takes from a human being to go for it like Tveito just did, but it is safe to say that the minimum requirement is super strong mind with limitless faith.

Tveito spend even a longer eternity in the air than Vole had. He flew for a very long time, high above the ground, almost twice the height of the cliff he was dropping, and caught massive airtime that would make champion skiers like Sverre Lilieqvist and Sebastian Michaud jealous. Maybe it was just a bit too much or maybe Magnus was just a little bit unlucky, but after spending a lifetime in the air, on the impact of his landing his skies simply refused to stay on his feet (maybe it was the skis that had too much) and he went for a really hard tumble, and lost the game to Vole. Nonetheless, Magnus made a very clear point with his run about commitment to the sport, and gave everybody a great lesson about unlimited courage, hardcore sportsmanship and the true spirit of freeriding.

But never mind the competition and the results. They of course will be chronicled, but the final day, and the days before, of the Röldal Freeride Challenge 2009 will be remembered from something else. RFC09 was a great show of freeriding talent and spirit with good, positive vibes... the very best possible ending for the winter season 2009.

Still, it has to be pointed out to everybody, and no matter who you are, a local hero or a reigning world champion, that if you really want to prove yourself as a freerider, you have to travel to Norway and participate in the RFC. Just make sure that when you go there, you are fully prepared, ready to go all out, willing to give your best ever, as anything less is not enough. And bear in mind and you will still be spanked harder than ever, because the norwegians really are a force to be reckoned. Rest of the world watch out: the vikings are coming, and they mean business!