Freezing in the rain
Tuesday November 3, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

Some of the best riders in the world were in London for Freeze, the bands were awesome, the crowds great and a good time seemed to be had by everyone. Oh, and the British weather posed a few problems too.

It was probably the first slab avalanche in London.

But in the early hours of Saturday morning heavy rain took its inevitable toll and all the snow on the jump simply slid off.

Like all true ski and snowboarding events the weather had played its part.

However the rain eased off on Sunday as the day progressed, the slope workers spent hours putting the snow back and the competition continued. Albeit several hours later than planned.

They couldn't get snow at the very top of the take off so the organisers squirted a bit of 'fairy liquid' on it so the riders could get a bit of lubrication.

It was billed as the UK's largest snow and music festival, and was held for the second year Battersea power station. A great venue for such an event and it created a fantastic atmosphere.

15,000 people attended on each of the 3 days.

It all slid down500 tons of real snow was imported and the top of the jump was 35m high and 100m long. The drop of 17m made it the UK's biggest ever man-made real snow air jump with a huge scaffolding structure supporting it all.

For snowboarders, there was the opportunity to see some of the best in the world compete in the UK leg of the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup on Saturday.

Saturday's competition was won by the Austrian Stefan Gimpl. The highest place Brit was the half pipe champion, Ben Kilner, who came 14th.

Gimpl was celebrating his 30th birthday this weekend.

"I am so happy to win here - it's a great birthday present. I still get so nervous before a jump even though I've done it so many times and I was especially nervous at the top here because you look down and there is such a huge crowd but thankfully it all went really well out," he said afterwards.

"The British crowd have been brilliant and it's great to see so many people here - I know I will remember this one for a while."

Awesome standard of competitionIt was a magnet for hundred of seasonaires who flocked to the event and we will be having a personal view from PlanetSKI reporter, Sarah Vizard, who met up with a bunch of friends she did seasons with a few years ago.

We will also have some video of the riders so check back later to see the guys gettiing some awesome air and pulling of some wicked tricks.

There were also a number of other competitions taking place over the weekend, including the Battle of Britain contest on Friday.

Over 100 athletes from 14 countries took part.

For ski enthusiasts, Sunday provided one of the only opportunities to see professional skiers competing in the UK in the International Freestyle Ski Big Air competition.

More than 30 riders, including world record holder Simon Dumont and British hope James Wood, competed head-to-head to see who could pull the best tricks on the kicker.

Young Jamie was voted to go down the kicker by his fellow skiers and test it once the slope workers had put all the snow back after the avalanche.

He did it with style. Pulled off a huge jump and teased his fellow competitors for being chicken to do it.

Let the party beginAway from the snow, there were two music stages with acts including Orbital, Calvin Harris and Friendly Fires, as well as a number of less well-known bands and DJs.

On Saturday, there was also a retro Halloween fancy dress theme, with many turning up in their best purple all-in-ones ski suits and bum bags.

For a roughly edited video of proceedings on Sunday see the video below. Wow!

As far as we are concerned at PlanetSKI it was a great event and so good to have a ski atmosphere and party in the middle of London. For a personal report from a seasonaire, Sarah Vizard, who was there see this related story.

For the full results of the competitions www.londonfreeze.com

While for some more pictures of the event then check out the Photos of the Week on the PlanetSKI home page.

Bring on 2010