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This past weekend we ventured up the cold Lesotho Mountains to Africa’s snowboarding paradise, Afriski, for this year’s Kings Cup and Burton Park Jam Tour and this is how it went down!
The slopestyle comp was supposed to get underway on Saturday morning but white out blizzard conditions hit the resort and cancelled Saturday’s events. We awoke to a blue bird day on Sunday and event organisers decided to get things going with the comp and run it as a three run final with the top two runs counting toward overall classification.
The 23 male riders and 7 female riders pushed their skill level to the maximum on the newly extended Afriski Park which included an awesome rail garden with various hits for the riders to choose from including a selection of kickers ending out the course. Each rider pushed the next to up their level of riding and grabbed the TTR points on offer, this being the first time that riders were able to compete for TTR points.
As the day progressed the wind picked up making the jumps in the park harder to ride, but this didn’t stop the young guns from putting down back-to-back spins on the bottom jumps as well as some super smooth rail riding.
Dean Van Greunen rocked the snowpark with consistent and stylish runs throwing back-flips and back-three-nose-grabs which saw him take the top step of the podium in both the Burton Park Jam Tour Junior Men’sDivision and the Kings Cup Men’sDivision.
Photo Caption: Dean throwing down his back-flip
Luke Dutton owned the rail garden spinning clean 270’s on the rails and smooth back lips on the down bar taking 2nd in the Burton Park Jam Tour Junior Men’sDivision and 3rd in the Kings Cup Men’s Division.
Photo Caption: Luke Dutton owning the stair rail
Dave Phillips stomped some great runs earning him 1st place in the Burton Park Jam Tour Men’s Division and 5th in the Kings Cup Men’sDivision.
Photo Caption: Davo hitting the final kicker
Siblings Mawa and Marcin Jekot hit the park with their usual dominant style which saw Mawa take 1st place in the Kings Cup Women’s Division and Marcin nailing the 2nd place in the Kings Cup Men’s Division.
Photo Caption: Mawa in control over the flat-to-down
Photo Caption: Marcin styling over the big kicker
Other standout and improved riders on the weekend were Vanessa Jackson, Brigitte Heeb, Neil Freemantle, Dale Andrews and Graham Sepatta who have all stepped up a level and are going to make things interesting for SA Champs coming up in a few weeks.
Photo Caption: Neil Freemantle – Nose-Grab
A shout out has to go to Kuba Granicki who got the crash of the comp when in his last run he took himself out hard a few times and still rode away with a smile on his face….Nice one Kuba!
Photo Caption: Kuba about to drop in for his run
The level of the amateur riders has been significantly lifted thanks to the international influence of the Burton Park Jam Tour and judging by the level of stoke at the end of the competition we can only anticipate an even better competition next year.
We have to say that this was one of the best organised and put together snowboarding events to take place to date in South Africa – we had an absolute blast and we can’t wait to get back up to Afriski for SA Champs.
Big thanks to all the sponsors: Skullcandy, Burton, Mini, Red Bull, Afriski and Snowboarder.co.za
The results were as follows:
Burton Park Jam Tour 2012 Women’s Division
1st – Vanessa Jackson
2nd – Nathalie Scott
3rd – Zoe Goodbrand
Burton Park Jam Tour 2012 Junior Women’s Division
1st – Kate Dutton
Burton Park Jam Tour 2012 Men’s Division
1st – Dave Phillips
2nd – Jonathan Herbst
3rd – Chad Laybourne
Burton Park Jam Tour 2012 Junior Men’s Division
1st – Dean Van Grenen
2nd – Luke Dutton
3rd – Graham Sepatta
Kings Cup Women’s Division
1st – Mawa Jekot
2nd – Brigitte Heeb
3rd – Vanessa Jackson
4th – Nathalie Scott
5th – Zoe Goodbrand
6th – Bronwyn Biccard
7th– Kate Dutton
Kings Cup Men’s Division
1st – Dean Van Grenen
2nd – Marcin Jekot
3rd – Luke Dutton
4th – Neil Freemantle
5th – Dave Phillips
6th – Dale Andrews
7th – Graham Sepatta
8th – Jonathan Herbst
9th – Chad Laybourne
10th – Brad Richardson
11th – Vivian Viljoen
12th – Johan Basson
13th – Wynand Weyers
14th – Michael Rassmann
15th – Kuba Granicki
16th – Dustin Botha
17th – Ruan Pansegrouw
18th – Tom Basson
19th – Dean Cowley
20th – Alex Heath
21st – Peter Brookstein
22nd – Paul Hughes
23rd – Sebastian Gruber
