We havn’t been in Latvia for that long but it has been a long roadtrip till the end of the season. The first stop was (900km) Davos where we did some sweet freeriding. A short (200km) drive later we were in Valemalenco for one of the last World Cups of the season.

We both missed the finals and took places 19 and 22. Britt crashed hard and had to take it easy. The whole team decided to go to a FIS race in Val Thorens (850 km). Bell took 9th place due to an early disqualification of a russian girl…

At the World Cup Finals in La Molina Pirynees (850km) Bell managed to ride top 16.In the final heat she was up against Olympic Champion Maelle Ricker and current World Champion Helene Olafsen and ended up 15th (seasons best).

After we dropped our coach off at Barcelona airport we rented bikes and biked our way though Barcelona. Cleve, our teammate, was an exellent guide!

Then it was off to Isola 2000 (1000km) for 2 Europa Cups. Going from a nice temperature in Barcelona to rain in the mountains was a bit of a dissapointment… Never the less Bell took a 2nd place in the Europa Cup. Now it was off to a boardtest for a Wintersport magazine in Alpe d’huez (300km). A nice short ride….NOT After all the long trips we made this one took more than 5 hours on tiny roads. Nice to know is that Cleve gets carsick after 10 minutes on these roads

The boardtest was awesome, we had a super nice crew and a lot of next seasons boards surprised us! We had some nice freeriding action. We finished it off by riding a sick steep couloir. While the rest of the team went back to Holland we drove to Davos (700km) for some chilling time with our mom and sister. A lot of sunshine and some skiing action later we drove back to Les2Alps (700km) for the Belgian Open. A big appartment with 11 friends, a big 25th bday party, a super nice event where we put down some dutch podiums!! Bell won the sbx (beating 99% of the guys too!) and won the Most impressive Dutchie Award!

Then the last 1000km home…

Today, the 12th of Febuary 2010 the Olympic Games start in Vancouver Canada. Sadly we’re not in Vancouver at the moment because we didn’t make the qualifications. Exactly one year ago (on the date) we had an Olympic test event in Vancouver. That was the event where it went wrong for Bell. She broke her upper arm and wrist during the competition.

So today is a pretty weird day; happy that we’re fit and healthy, sad that we’re not representing our country in Vancouver.

Now we’re making our living room ready for some historic TV moments.

We’ll keep you updated during the games.

The moment we arrived in Laax and walked into the bar all of our friends gave us such a nice welkom we’ll never forget! The tone was set for the rest of the week. While driving up to Laax we managed to enter the half pipe competition the next day. The pipe (super big especially if you only ride it once a year), the weather and vibe were super. Dj’s throwing down some nice tunes, riders tricks and we were having fun! Bell made it to the finals in first place with Anne Fleur and Martine not far behind. In the finals I fell pretty hard back into the pipe witch resulted in a massive headache and a third place. Stoked to be on the podium with my friends so a little celebration was in order… The next day everything got cancelled because of heavy snowfall and wind. NO Problem! Powder riding with friends and chilling in the afternoon. Next day SBX day. Frank and the whole NK crew already put in a lot of effort while we were riding powder so the basic course was there. It snowed again that night so we still had a lot of work to dig out the features. After 2 hours of digging the rest of the riders (125!!!) came up and were anxious to ride! The course had some technical features, jumps and turns but most of all it was bumpy. This resulted in pile ups and cool passes. Joey the Jong, our assistent  trainer this season made it to the finals and got 3rd!! Big up for him!! We both made it to the finals with our Sunweb teammate Bibian Mentel (check out her website!). Britt had a better start but Bell passed her in the first turn… Bell prolonged her title, Britt second and Bibian third a whole Sunweb podium!

Only 3 words needed to describe this super nice event: Podium, Powder and Party

It’s been a while sinds we posted on our website. We’ve been super busy, traveling a lot and had some internet issues. Never the less a lot has happened in the last 2 weeks.

We left after training in Davos to the first World Cup of 2010 in Bad Gastein. Nice course, a little simular as last year but we we ready to give it our best. Britt had some trouble with the course because her knee injury happened there. We both had good runs but with a couple of tenths of a second we missed out on the finals. We ended up 24th and 33rd. We did have 15 reporters from the Netherlands come and check out our sport. Cool that people are writing and reporting about snowboardcross so that the rest of the dutch get the chance to see the sport.

The Europa cup was held a day later where I got a nice 10th place.

After that it was Veysonnaz Switzerland. Steep course, big jumps and a little bit easier for us. We had a great training day and were ready to race. Cleve (our teammate) missed out on the finals by a couple of tenths of a second this time so it was up to us.

Britt fell in her first run and made a big mistake the second run so no finals for her. Bell got super close in her first run but made a little mistake on the 2nd run and ended up like Cleve just a little too short.

With those results Bell came 4 spots to short on the International Quota List. This list started last year because only (the best) 25 girls over the world can go to the Olympics. With the injury from last year, where she missed 4 competitions, it was hard to get in the top 25 but not impossible. With the competitors riding perfect she didn’t make it.

SO NO Olympics for US…

Hereby a short piece from Bad Gastein that was on NOS StudioSport.

NOS Radio Snowboardcoss with Bell, Britt and Cleve

NOS Radio Portret Bell and Britt Berghuis