Module: gallery_album
Item: WCC2012_QP
Displays the photo gallery for a selected Gallery Album.We watched the men’s and women’s slopestyle semis at the World Snowboarding Championships for most of Friday, with blue skies above and about 30°F in the air. Coat off while hiking up the side of the slopestyle course in search of shots, it felt good.
By half past four, though, the Vinterpark was empty of the snowboarding circus because we were all on buses headed for Holmenkollen. Friday night lights for shredders: an evening at the quarterpipe. The drive took us through bright white glades punctuated by the leafless silhouettes of deciduous trees, all backed by vigorous evergreen forest, and under a lingering yellow Scandinavian sunset. People still cross-country skied or walked their dogs on the trails maintained in these broad expanses. Then we headed up a hill and suddenly I saw the water. I like Oslo and Norway, I thought—it’s like a European Pacific Northwest. The Oslofjorden resembles Puget Sound, wrapping around green-treed islands and the wooded main shore, all under a faint, feathery, boreal winter sky.
We walked off the bus and right past a cross-country ski path that winds and weaves for miles around the entire Holmenkollen nordic center. Boys, girls, men, and women pushed along and tucked down hills, with rosy cheeks and perfect form (it’s the national sport), under stadium lights and a shiny black sky. Absorbing our attention, however, was the projecting take-off ramp of the long jump—tonight’s starting gate was up there, a long way into the void. Scandinavian design is famously well styled, so this venue made for a dramatic background to an evening of boosting. I likened it to a ramp for extraterrestrial vehicles, which meant that tonight it would serve as a snowy runway for the antics of aliens capable of putting McTwists and methods past seven meters.
A stream of colorful hats, beanies and winter jackets flowed from the entry gate into the stands for tens of minutes until the place was packed. I watched from the opposite side, near a big tent entitled “Organic Quarterpipe Burger.” Next to it was a sign for “Bakt Potet.” The burger was good—they like to put coleslaw on them here—but not the price: ten bucks, no fries. I saw no alcohol for sale in the arena. Oh well, because a beer costs ten bucks, too. We drank water. Later on, some friends popped open a few tall boys as we waited for the bus back into town, but they were told it was illegal to drink in the street. The legal booze limit for driving is 0.02 here, and you don’t want to know the penalties.
No matter. We were too distracted by the airs, and by the female faces—one look in their aqueous blue eyes warms the whole body over. So, I was saying . . . ah, the finals began at around eight. Way up at the black starting gate a miniature rider appears and drops in for a few slashes in the loose snow on either side of the groomed center. It looked like distant powder shots. Wait, I recognize that style. Terje. Speed check, adjust binders and goggles, then bomb a hundred yards straight down, compress, as the crowd screams and the board chatters up the spotlight-illuminated, shiny ramp of white with vertical blue lines—into the chilly Oslo night air for a few seconds of flight.
Air it out. The method just seems made for the quarterpipe. Terje knows this, and no one on Earth extends them quite like the sprocking cat can. Spins capture the crowd, but massive straight grabs are what move the old school. We holla’d.
Others flailed at such heights, to improve on upcoming runs though. There were a few hard smacks and a few smashes into the airbag just behind the coping. They’d slide into the flats, shake their heads, and receive a warm cheer from the fans.
Unfortunately for everyone, Haakon himself was one victim. He threw it too high, a little out of kilter, and came down on the airbag, then smashed against the unforgiving vert. The place went silent. Terje walked around a bit in the flat and no one seemed to breathe. But when Norway’s hero climbed up to the riders’ area the people erupted. Terje was done though. His leg was suffering. So he went back into the ramp’s flats, waved to the fans, and took off his helmet. This he sent with a fully-cocked hurl into the far-off crowd, and the black helmet spun, its straps extended, until it reached the barrier wall of the stands. It would have hit it and fallen into the snow twenty feet below had I not caught it. Pop Warner football finally paid off. Kids wanted it, but I kept it.
Despite the bail, Terje got second and took the highest air award, reaching toward eight meters (about twenty-five feet) with a mighty method. It was a pretty rad show, the quarterpipe, for us riders, but was also wholesome entertainment for all of the winter-stoked Norwegian families in attendance. Really, the WSC quarterpipe event was just a badass expression session—just what the crazed, intense snowboard contest scene needs for balance. Who would disagree? Certainly not the pros who got to ride alongside Håkonsen.
Stay tuned for pipe and slopestyle summaries. Oslo out.