Tailfish » Competition

Photos by Jools Smith: BST Giro Big Air

Kat Miller — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:26:14 +0000

Jools has been beavering away all day and I can now link to his slideshow on Flickr. If any of you do want hi-res shots then simply drop him an email (details in the set on Flickr) and he’ll ping them over to you. Enjoy.

Snow Tour in Kickers Built to Meet Planned Sizes Shocker!

Kat Miller — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:07:39 +0000

I’m feeling slightly odd at the moment. Why? You might ask. Well this Saturday as Jools and I drove home from the British Snow Tour Indoor Big Air competition (sponsored by Giro) we realised we actually weren’t moaning!
It’s been a good few years since I’ve been to any Snow Tour competition that I haven’t left feeling totally gutted either for myself or for friends, either due to apparent mis-judging or in the case of last year’s big air, injury from the overly large and mis-shaped kicker. It was this kicker that was on my list of things to raise even before I became the Tour’s rider rep, so many people had spent almost a year in fear of what would be put out this year that there was talk of boycotting the event in the name of safety (and not starting the new season with an injury).
Thankfully Spencer of Soulsports took this on board (“We never thought we’d hear ourselves say it, but in retrospect, we are forced to recognise that last year’s kicker at the British Big Air Championships was simply too big, and subsequently elitist. And so, for the record, we would like to assure every aspiring UK skier and snowboarder out there that king-shaper Damian Doyle, is currently working alongside the MK park crew in the process of building what he claims will be the most beautifully sculpted and rider-friendly 10m kicker ever build indoors, WITH an equally considered 6m and 3m kicker option to cater for first-timers and the country’s leading pros – something the British Snow Tour is all about! So, get yourself down to MK this weekend and ride the greatest kicker ever build indoors” Spencer Claridge – BST Director) and Damian Doyle was brought on to help work with each slope’s local team to help ensure that the set up was perfect at each venue. It certainly paid off for Saturday’s competition, with 3 well shaped kickers that actually matched the sizes pre-announced on the course plans. The only negative comment I heard all day was that it was a bit hard to judge the speed due to the changing conditions on the run in, something I think riders will admit to facing no matter what surface they are riding. On a positive note the body count for the snowboarders was zero (as opposed to a third of competitors last year), so well done to Damian and the local crew Thom, Jack & Neil! Now all we need to do is convince MK to do a kicker night once a month and we’ll see some real progression from the local riders on the kicker front.
The judging seemed pretty spot on too, there didn’t seem to be any stunned silences as the results were announced and I didn’t see any tears. Certainly I didn’t receive any upset Facebook messages as I’ve done in the past.
It was a shame that the Big Bang show was on at the same time in Tamworth, but having less riders did mean the competition ran to time (slightly early in fact) and we didn’t all freeze from hanging around for ages waiting for our runs. I also really liked the new format, a jam warm-up with throw down prizes and then 3 runs for the actual championships. I know some riders prefer the old 2 run format for qualifications followed by 2 more runs, and I have no doubt that not everyone will always be pleased but if you’re a rider who wouldn’t qualify for the final then you get more shredding done for your money.
All in all it was a good competition, I enjoyed it and I got the feeling that the other riders did too. I’m looking forward to doing the slope-style at Castleford in a couple of weeks now. The team at Cas always put on a good set-up and I’m looking forward to seeing the kids throw down up there. It’s a shame that the slope-style clashes with the Westbeach final in France but in the end I’ve decided to stick to the UK. This decision has already raised questions and raised eye-brows from people who think I should choose core over mainstream, think I’ve quit riding dry-slope or am siding with the evil money-making Brass. For those of you who are questioning my choices it’s as simple as this….it’s all down to personal choice and circumstances. Firstly, I do like doing the TTR ranked competitions, at 35 it’s nice to be able to brag that you are 150ish in the world ranking. Secondly, I’m a company director, a start-up, and this means I have to put work and finances first, being mid-way through 3 system implementations it means I may end up having to cancel my weekend plans at the last minute and it is much easier to do that without losing money if I only have travel bookings in England as opposed to Eurotunnel bookings to France. Snowboarding isn’t my reason for living, it’s not my job and so I choose to put my life and job first and if that means upsetting friends and acquaintances then I guess I have to live with that. The UK scene is too small, over crowded and has too many overlapping events for me to be able to please all of the comp organisers all of the time, so if I’m not at your event, it’s nothing personal against you, just me putting my personal needs first.
The same can be said about me becoming rider rep for the snow tour, it was a personal decision based on a sudden desire to stop being so “British” and actually complain for once. I haven’t done this to support Stu Brass and Soulsports, I’ve done it because I got sick of constantly moaning but never doing anything about it and to help other riders complain too, even if they wanted to do it anonymously. Those of you who have known me for a while or have read this blog will know that I’m the gobby one, the one who’ll review an event the way I saw it not the way people want the outcome to be perceived and it’s because of this that I am able to give the feedback to the Snow Tour without fearing for future comp positions, I’ve been mouthing off for ages and so we might as well all benefit as riders by providing feedback so something can be done to fix the things we perceive as broken. Others are making their feelings known by boycotting the Snow Tour, but whether that will make a difference or not I don’t know. All I know is that I am not going to stop being a rider rep purely under pressure from those who think I shouldn’t help Stu Brass improve his events (and therefore make money), nor will I bow to the warning that I might as well not bother going to any independent events this years I’ll be marked down for being a Snow Tour supporter. If that’s the case then I wouldn’t want to support an event that is not fairly judged anyway.
I love snowboarding and I love competition, all I want to do is enjoy it, at whatever comp I ride at, whoever is putting the event on. This weekend, the British Snow Tour ticked the right boxes for me and I had fun! Thanks to everyone I saw this Saturday, you all made it a great day for me.

oh and as a bonus I have finally managed to win myself a voucher for a new helmet, which considering mine is about 4 years old is probably a good thing. So now I just have to hope my midget head can find a lovely new Giro helmet that fits it (without me having to get a kiddy one).

British Snow Tour – Loads of Changes

Kat Miller — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:51:31 +0000

Just wanted to share this email that came out from Stu Brass today. I think that this season is starting off in a positive way with some good changes in the British Snow Tour format for competitors.

The jam session warm-up and 3 comp runs should mean more shred time than in the past and I also like the idea of seeded riders running at the end of the session (this will be especially handy for young Katie Ormerod who is ranked first since she normally rides early on in the order due to her young age). The team also seem to have taken on board the feedback about the kickers in the Big Air comp as they’ve got Damian Doyle heading up all the indoor park builds this year. The other bonus is that snowboarders don’t have to fork out an additional licence fee to compete this year (saving me £20 that can go on petrol instead!)

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Stuart Brass” <stu@soulsports.co.uk>
Date: 8 September 2010 11:42:25 GMT+01:00
To: “Stuart Brass” <stu@soulsports.co.uk>
Cc: “Spencer Claridge” <spencer@soulsports.co.uk>, “Joanne Brown” <joanne@soulsports.co.uk>
Subject: British Snow Tour – Loads of Changes

Hello Snowboarders & Skiers

Just a quick one to let you know about the first event of the British Snow Tour this weekend and also about all the changes we’ve made to the Tour…

1/ New National Champs Comp format (3 runs best 1 counts)

2/ New additional Jam competition (free with the National Champs)

3/ New younger age groups

4/ £Entry Offers (3 disciplines for the price of 2 at Norwich & 3 indoor entries for price of 2)

5/ New Seeded riders

6/ New Ranking lists (UK & Global)

7/ No snowboard license fee

8/ Registration on the day results in a £5 donation to GB Teams (so pre-register, pay on the day though)

9/ More events added to the tour, initially in the form of the Scottish series but more to follow

10/ New sponsors & media partners

11/ New BST Rider rep (Kat Miller)

12/ Dedicated BST Park Designer & Shaper (Damian Doyle)

13/ A regularly updated www.facebook.com/snowtour website

And lastly our new website… www.britishsnowtour.com

Hopefully we’ll see you there, and don’t forget to pre-register if you are competing, if doesn’t cost you anything but it’ll save you a fiver

Regards

Stu

Posted via email from IAmKat’s posterous

Snow Tour | New BST Park Shaper

Kat Miller — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:27:07 +0000

New BST Park Shaper

Damo’s onboard! – In additional to the mass of improvements that the British Snow Tour is unleashing this year, things have been taken one step further as the freestyle-shaping prowess of UK’s best-loved snow-sculpted expert, Damian Doyle is brought onboard. Damo and crew will be creating and shaping every British Indoor Championship course from the Trespass Snowboardcross/Skiercross course and Rail Jam set-up at Glasgow, to the Giro Big Air booter at MK, and finally at Protest Slopestyle course at Castleford. Save the dates folks… it’s gonna go off!

View as plain text

via britishsnowtour.com

This is great news, as Rider Rep for the BST I’ve had a lot of feedback about the standard of the big air kickers (and had my own slamtastic issues with them) over the last few years so it’s good to see some changes to the park building crew. I’m looking forward to seeing what Damo puts together for us

Posted via email from IAmKat’s posterous

Press release: Live Scoring at Burton NZ Open

Kat Miller — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:58:21 +0000

This is a change that I would definitely welcome in the UK snowboarding competition scene. I’ve always wondered why it takes so long after a competition has ended to tally up the scores and work out the finalists, if you’re using a clear marking scheme then surely it should just be a simple rearrangement of riders based on their score. The fact that so long is taken just makes riders/spectators query the results and wonder whether the judges are ensuring that the scores they submit match the pre-arranged placings or make sure that their “best bud” is through to the final. I hope that this is well received at the higher level competitions and that we see it happening in the UK as soon as the judges can get up to speed with it.

SNOWBOARDING LIVE SCORING SYSTEM
TO BE INTRODUCED AT THE BURTON NEW ZEALAND OPEN
Wanaka, New Zealand – August 5th, 2010: Following the successful launch of the
Snowboarding Live Scoring System™ at The Oakley Arctic Challenge slopestyle last winter,
major events on the Swatch TTR World Tour have agreed to work together to expand and
implement the system for all halfpipe, slopestyle and big air competitions for the upcoming
2010/11 season. The Live Scoring System is planned to be introduced across all 6Star TTR
events in an effort to break down barriers posed by the current Overall Impression system and to
improve the presentation and understanding of competitive freestyle snowboarding as a whole.
In a tight partnership between TTR, the World Snowboard Federation, the events, judges and
riders, the Live Scoring System was developed as a completely new way to judge snowboarding.
The current system in use, called Overall Impression, focuses on a rider’s run in its entirety and
provides little to no feedback to riders or spectators on how a score is generated. The new Live
Scoring System is more transparent and allows everyone to clearly see how judges give points by
scoring each trick individually in a rider’s run. Each trick score is added up to generate a total
trick score that is then combined with a total flow score (how well a rider links all tricks in the run)
to make up the final score for a rider’s run.
The Live Scoring system will be used for the first time in both halfpipe and slopestyle at the 2010
Burton New Zealand Open. If the system is well received among riders, media and fans, the goal
is to integrate the system in all 6Star TTR events throughout the upcoming 2010/11 season.
However, based on the overall feedback from riders, spectators and television viewers from the
2010 Arctic Challenge, the general consensus is the system will be a major leap forward for the
sport.
Leading the development of this new judging system are experienced head judges Dani Kiwi
Meier and Greg Johnson who have both been involved with snowboard judging systems for over
15 years. Meier and Johnson have been working with top riders on the new judging system,
especially Torstein Horgmo, Andreas Ygre Wiig and Terje Haakonsen, who have been key
players in the overall development. Snowboard VM 2012, a Norwegian organization that will
oversee the operation of the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships, has financially backed
the development of the Live Scoring System and is also the current owner of the new system.
Snowboard VM 2012 plans to make the new judging system available to all interested events
within the TTR ranking system.
The 5Star Burton New Zealand Open will take place August 10-14, 2010 at Cardrona Alpine
Resort. For a sneak peak at how the new Live Scoring System will work, the New Zealand Open
will be webcast live on August 13th and 14th in New Zealand time zones and on August 12th and
13th in North American time zones at GO211.com. Check opensnowboarding.com or
GO211.com for complete webcast details.