French
rider Mathieu Crepel was more than happy to take home the "Best Rider"
award and a brand new ATV with consistent riding all throughout the week,
showing a huge variety including BS and switch BS 1080s.
Travis Rice was looking good for the "Best Trick" with Double Backflip
late BS 180s until german local David Benedek stepped it up with a never-before-seen
FS double cork 1260, assuring him all votes for the Win.
Also, Christophe Schmidt was awarded with a prize for the "Longest Airtime",
clearing the hip with a total of 3.10 seconds in the air.
The
Red Bull Gap Session 2006
On
March 11th
David Benedek and Christoph Weber invited spectators to the Ski Stadium in
Garmisch, Germany, for a show that would usually be for camera lenses only.
10 friends and fellow pros were allowed to ride the set up for 5 days before
the public was allowed to watch an exclusive session. After riding on Saturday
the pros themselves got together to vote for the "Best Rider" of
the week as well as "Best Trick" of the day.
We
made it through the week and it was a great success!
Thanks for everyone who helped and came to watch, first and foremost all the
attending riders: Travis Rice, Nicolas Mueller, Freddy Kalbermatten, David
Benedek, Christoph Weber, Travis Parker, Marko Grilc, Mathieu Crepel, Christophe
Schmidt and Markus Keller.
David
Benedek, FS Double Cork 1260. Photo: Brecheis
Christophe
Schmidt, David Benedek and Mathieu Crepel taking home the prizes. Photo: Red
Bull
In
less than 2 months 50.000 cubic metres of snow had been pushed up to create
one of the biggest snow mounds ever built, serving as the foundation of the
jump. Pic: Brecheis
Blank Paper Studio is producing a short film from the Session which will be
available online as well as inserted in some the World´s Best Snowboard
Magazines.
Check out the trailer in High Quality or
Medium Quality
What was the intention of putting this event on?
I really wanted to create a time-out from the regular Snowboarding season and
dedicate a week to simply pushing the technical envelope. I have the feeling
Pros dont ever get that time-out to just ride and progress.
Snowboarding is at such a ridiculously high level that even when you are filming
for a video part you cant just try crazy shit all the time because you need
to make sure to land tricks and get shots.
And in contests people obviously have to show what they already know in order
to succeed.
So in general Pro Snowboarding seems to be more in a state of delivering as
opposed to experimenting.
I wanted 10 guys that are capable of pushing the envelope to simply spend time
at a perfect set up and try stuff they´ve always wanted to try.
How was the set up more perfect than others?
Well, Christoph and I have worked on this jump for a long time and i can surely
say it´s the safest jump i have ever ridden, especially considering the
long airtime you have. It´s somewhat of a step-over which means you land
with a lot less speed than on a regular park table, the downside obviously being
high inrun speed. You are going close to 60mph.
But looking back on the week i think we had 5 different people trying double-corks
or similar tricks, that really shows how comfortable everyone was feeling.
We also brought in an air-pillow people could just launch into, but people didnt
even use it much at all.
Unfortunately we werent too lucky with the weather, otherwise i think we there
would have been a bunch of never-before-seen tricks gone down.
Why did you want the last day to be a competition?
I have always found it sad, that contest riding is never on the very top notch
level of Snowboarding. Maybe in the pipe it´s different these days but
in general you always had to wait for the Videos to come out to see the progression.
And for a regular snowboarder there wasnt really a way to witness it first hand
or take a look behind the curtains of the exclusive and elusive crowd of video
riders that snowboard somewhere he will most likely never go.
That´s why i wanted this event to be a fusion of a film session and a
competition.
And besides, a little competition never hurts the riding level.
Will you put this on again next year?
We definitely hope so. I really liked the vibe this year with everyone spending
a week together and just ride. We will release a short film about the session
later this summer and i think we should hopefully know by then.
Interview
with Organizer and Best Trick Winner, David Benedek:
Mathieu
Crepel, BS 270 Nose Grab on the hip. Pic: Red Bull
Christophe
Schmidt and his 3.10 seconds of fame. Photo: Red Bull
Christophe
Schmidt, FS 360 over the hip. Pic: Brecheis
Copyright
2007
