If you were anywhere in or around South London at any stage last weekend, you’d have been hard-pushed not to realise there was something big going on. Something seriously big. In fact, it was possibly the biggest snowboard event ever seen on UK soil – the third edition of the Relentless Freeze Festival. As well as attracting some of the biggest names in snowboarding, the event also boasted one of the biggest crowds ever and a musical line-up that was off the hook.
The crowds filing into the arena on the Friday afternoon were treated to a special contest in the Whitelines Battle of Britain. The tricks being thrown down on the monstrous kicker showed once again that UK riding has stepped up seriously in the past year. Unfortunately relatively high winds and a slightly slow run-in meant that the likes of Billy Morgan and Jamie Nicholls kept their doubles under lock and key, but all sorts of steezy stuff got whipped out of the cupboard instead – Dom Harington’s 7 was even enough to land him a photo in The Times the following day!
It was the first time ever that Freeze accepted female entries into the competition and that was purely based on the fact these two are the crème of the crop- Jenny Jones (3 times X-Games Gold Medallist) for snowboarding and 15-year-old Katie Summerhayes for Freestyle Skiing.
Saturday featured the flagship event of Freeze and the second Big Air content of the 2011 season, the London leg of the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup. With 68 riders from 14 countries competing, it was Slovenian, Marco Grilc who took top spot. The 27 year-old was crowned King of the Slope with his backside 1080 double cork in the final, earning himself the highest comp score of 29.3 Points. Apart from the victory, there was a showcase from Staale Sandbech, Slopestyle Junior World Champion dubbed ”the future of snowboarding”, stunning the judges and London crowd with a clean cab 900 melon and a smooth backside 1080mute. And talented young Brit Jamie Nicholls snatched the home crowd with a fantastic seventh place finish.
Check out the event highlights right here...
