After an awesome freeride trip in Klosters it was time for the Dutch Championships in Laax. Britt and Frank would arrive on Tuesday so it was up to Bell to be represent at the beach styled opening party in the Casa Veglia…
Wednesday was still a day of rest for Britt while Bell was charging the half pipe. With a 3 rd place in the FIS contest is was a good day.
The next day is was big air day but after the big crash last year Bell choose not to participate. Frank entered her in the pgs…It was pretty funny, Bell’s first slalom contest. Of course she waxed her board like your suppose to. With no experience and hard boots she came in 3rd! Nice job…only 3 girls competing .
De discipline we wanted to win was up next. Frank (with the help of Laax) did an awesome job shaping a nice little sbx course. For the first time it was actually a sbx course instead of a banked slalom. This resulted in big smiles on everybody’s faces. All the freestyle and slalom riders joined in to race for this Dutch title. With no wind and a blue sky the race started. One qualification run and then finals. Bell qualified first and Britt second. We shared the heat with Anne Fleur (yeah!) and Sonja. Bell won the race and Britt fell and became 4th. The Dutch title changed owner this year but stayed in the family. Now off to the ISPO and on Friday we’re already off to an Olympic test event in Vancouver.
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For this special occasion (our first World Champs) we invited our mom to see us (don’t know if she really looked) ride for the first time. Also Bibian Mentel and Jan de Ceuster flew in to make our team complete with an assistant coach and physio. Before writing about our experiences there, we want to thank everybody who supported us!
First of all the course looked amaizing! Almost as if the course was cut out of the mountain with a laser. With the crash Britt made in Bad Gastein she couldn’t train the first day but we were pretty hopefull as the knee was improving. The training started out good by stikking the first run quite nice. It only improved over the 2 training days.
Britt sadly didn’t improve enough so that she could start. It sucked but nevertheless she stood on the corner hit(see left) and yelled and coached me. Our mom, now fully understanding our sport wached (or didn’t watch) and brought up the coffie 
Qualifying day: the day that I had to ride 2 fast runs to get into the top 16.
My first run wasn’t fast as I made a couple of mistakes and overshot a kicker at the end. My second run had to be way faster. It started off as a really fast run but just before the corner hit, my edge got caught in a hole in the course and I got slammed into the flag… World Champs in 1 sec over and done…
It was sooo disapointing as my riding in training was a lot better and I had the feeling I could get into the top 16. After feeling very bad for quite a (long) while, we had the plessure of singing korean karroke…
The next day, the day of the finals, Bibian was forerunner and she kicked ass!! At least one dutchie riding on the finals day. It even snowed that day.. Normal you think… No way it never snows in Korea. The slopes are all artificial snow, the last time it snowed was 20 years ago. That evening we decided to do a little night riding. So at 21.30 Rutger, Jan, Bibian, Frank and I put on our gear and went out. Two slopes were closed for the slalom competition the next day. One, the real competition slope and one closeby. The one closeby hadn’t been groomed and because it had stayed cold we looked at a powder filled slope….The little kids in us woke up and could not resist the temptation…We kind off missed all the ropes and rode the KOREAN POWDER hahaha It even was pretty deep, movie coming online soon.
Amaizing when you realize that this is a situation that is highly unusual. The next morning our lines were still proudly liying there. If people are still wondering how they came there…dutchies…
Jep the title is correct, Bad Gastein wasn’t a success. Except for the good course, good organisation and good weather. You would think this is the perfect combo….
World cup 1: both our first runs were ok but not good enough, second run we both crashed. So not even close to the finals that was great disappointment.
Bad Gastein is known for its night finals so at eight the finals started. It was really a cool final to watch with loads of people and a hard and fast course.
Second day, Second world cup. We were glad we could start again for another race, it was time for revenge! But it wasn’t that kind of day. Bell ended up at the 19th place and Britt ended up at the hospital with a knee injury…..
We wish everybody A Happy New Year, Einen Guten Rutsch, Een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar, Une Bonne Annee en Feliz Navidad!
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