Waterbird are now on Facebook!
Wow! My first sponsors Waterbird now have their very own Facebook page – check them out here – Waterbird
These guys are awesome!
Waterbird
Medals at the Brits 2012!
Just got back from two pretty successful weeks in Laxx!
(click on a photo to see it in full!)
Week 1 – GB Youth Freeski Training
I headed out to Laxx a week before all the competitions started on a GB youth training camp to get some practice in on the features! Unfortunately on the first day I badly injured my back! but with alot of neurofen and some massaging from the TENS machine I was able to recover quickly and still got in a very good week of training! Our coaches were the brilliant Neil McGrain, Dave Young and Jamie Cameron! I learnt a few new tricks in the pipe and hit some of the biggest jumps I have ever done in my life with the help from these guys!
Week 2 – The British Championships
Day 1 – Halfpipe
We got up to the top of the hill and saw that on the day of the competition the pipe was wrecked! The walls had chunks taken out of them and they were covered in fresh snow. We spent a while side-slipping and shaping the walls to make as easy a ride as possible. Despite the pipe, everyone threw down in the qualifiers. I made the finals, finishing 10th overall and placing 3rd in youth mens!
Day 2 – Skiercross
This year the skiercross course was a lot more dangerous than last year. There were a lot of high speed jumps and sharp corners! The competition started the same way as usual…2 timed runs which then put us into heats but because there was only 6 in my category we went straight into the finals. I qualified for the final in 3rd along with two extremely fast racers and Ethan Prince. The racer who was favourite to win overshot the first jump, losing his skis and crashing out!
The second racer, Ethan and I had to dodge him and his equipment which was scattered everywhere to carry on! At the finish it was extremely close with the racer catching up with me but I just managed to cross the line in 1st place!
Day 3 – Slopestyle
Out of all of the disciplines, I was looking forward to slopestyle the most! I had been hitting the biggest jumps on the course all week but when it came to the practice runs in the competition I could only just get enough speed to clear the mediums! In Qualifiers I was extremly dissapointed with my performance and went off the watch the boarders compete in big air and ride the pipe for a bit. I was more than shocked when my dad came over to tell me I had got into the finals. I got back to the course just in time to get one warm up run before my final runs! I was worried to hear that during one of his runs Harris Booth had knuckled and injured himself.
During the finals I put down solid runs and later went to prize giving hoping for a place – I was stunned to hear that I actually got the Gold!! Later that night I found out that I got the highest rail score in the mens overall final and placed 4th overall narrowly missing out on an overall podium!
Day 4 – Big air
To be honest, I didnt really hit the big air kicker that much until the day of the competition because I didnt really like it but on the day, the more I hit it the more I loved it! My two qualifying runs went really well! I stomped a 3 tail grab and a cork 7 nose! I was stoked to make it into the finals but narrowly missed out on a podium in my category coming 4th!
Overall
A huge thanks to Neil Mcgrain, Dave young and Jamie Cameron for coaching and looking after me, a massive thanks to Becky Hammond for cooking all our meals during the first week!
Thanks to all of my sponsors for supplying me with my gear and helping me to be out there! A special thanks to the Gaskin family for coming to the rescue with new poles at such short notice after I snapped both of my old ones!
Finally, thanks to Stuart and Spencer for putting on such a fantastic week, and congratulations to all of the other medalists!!!
My Week at the Brits 2011!!
Last week me, my Mum, my Dad and my sister got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to make a twelve hour journey to Laax in Switzerland for the Brits! On the way there we got lost a couple of times but one of the worst was when we got lost in the roadworks around Zurich. The Sat Nav just kept us going round in circles! Eventually we got there and we were ready to go!
(Click on the photos to get the full picture)
Day 1 – Halfpipe
The first event of the week was the half pipe. We got up the mountain for half past nine. I got loads of practice runs. In my first competitive run I threw down some big air out of the pipe with solid, tweaked grabs. I tried to keep the style into it with a big 540 at the end! Unfortunately, I did not land my second run cleanly as I tried back to back 540’s and crashed on the last one…The pipe was running well and there was some stiff competition but I was pleased with my runs and I landed a silver medal!
Day 2 – Protest Slopestyle
On the second day, it was time for the slopestyle. The top part of the course was a awesome setup of boxes, rails and gas pipes. The bottom half were three booters! On my first run I landed the top part of the course with loads of technical moves on the boxes like K-feds, Blind switch ups and stalls! I came down to the booters and got a styley 360 with a nose grab but then on the second jump I overcooked it and nearly wiped out! On my second run I landed everything I wanted to! I walked away from the comp with a bronze medal!:)
Day 3 – Trespass Skiercross
Day 3 brought the skiercross. A day earlier, on the lift I had a chat with a boarder who was in the GB team for boarder cross. He said that the course was bad at the moment and bits of rock on grass were showing! On the day of the comp they still weren’t covered up which meant a really long wait for the comp to start! Finally it got underway, we only got one run and somehow I managed to miss a gate? Apparently loads of people missed it.
Day 4 – Giro Big Air
It was time for the final Brits event of the week – the Big Air! I had been hitting the big jump, getting styley threes off of it! So I did a huge, styley three with a nose grab off the big kicker for my first run. On my second and final run I did a 720 off of the middle kicker! I didn’t think I was going to win a medal as Tom Saunders really pulled it out of the bag with his run! In the end I think it all came down to the cleanness of the landings…it was a close one but I just managed to get the bronze medal!
Overall
I had a brilliant time competing in the Brits this year – as the youngest in my age category I really wasn’t expecting to land any medals, so to come away with three medals out of the four competitions was absolutely amazing!! I even won a light sabre for showing off my moves on the rails in the Stair Wars event!
I had tons of fun messing about and having fun at the freestyle academy.
I also want to say thank you to all of my sponsors for your support and gear (Adidas eyewear, Ski Bartlett, K2 Skis, Kent Reliance Building Society and Waterbird ) and a big up to Pat Sharples for giving me a few pointers throughout the week to help me achieve my goals!
Well done Sam
My ski buddy Sam Gaskin (son of Ally & Vince, my ski sponsors – Waterbird) just won a competition out of his whole year at school with a presentation on freestyle skiing that he gave – it included a video featuring some of his best tricks and also includes one or two shots of me…
You can watch the video on my private pages if you’re a mate at www.mjski.com (see the contact me page if you want to be a mate)
Check out my ski sponsors
Waterbird kindly supply me with my Ski equipment!
Signing the contract with Waterbird
Check them out at www.waterbird.co.uk