Continuous snowfall accompanied the halfpipe riders as they competed for the World Championship titles today at Madonna di Campiglio.
The men were the first to hit the pipe in the floodlit qualifications Friday night. The pipe has been a major concern since Sunday as the Canale Miramonti was the venue for the opening ceremony and the construction could not be not be started until afterwards. While most of the people who were attending the ceremony went for dinner, David Ny, FIS halfpipe contructor, was there to build the pipe.
Early on Monday, the floodlight was turned on, snow machines were running and big trucks lined up in front of the stadium to unload tons of snow. Within three-and-a-half days, more than 200 trucks unloaded 20,000 cubic meters of snow. Apart from Ny, 80 people, six snow machines and four trucks helped to put it all together. While the stadium looked as if it was bombed with snow on Monday and Tuesday, warm temperatures Wednesday caused it to become slushy and it would have fallen apart completely so practice was cancelled on both Wednesday and Thursday. Refraining from sleep and working on the pipe for 36 hours straight, Ny and the OC crew stayed optimistic and finally managed to pull it together for the men's qualifications.
"You usually need at least one or even two weeks to built a halfpipe," Ny said. "It took so long to rise the walls and we could only start to shape last minute. The major problem was the soft snow. If you build something in just a couple of days, it is hard to make it good quality."
"We have some of the best halfpipe shapers in the world," Ted Martin, FIS Snowboard race director, said, "and we had a lot of people out of this resort who have been working a lot to get where we are today. This is something like a miracle pipe."
For the finals on Saturday it turned out to be in good shape but heavy snowfall all day made competition a real challenge.
Kim Christiansen from Norway was the one to finally pull it together for the gold with an excellent performance in the first out of two final runs. "That is great," he said, "my amplitude, transition and vert — everything was just fine. Amplitude was the major requirement today but it was equal for everyone in the finals and we all could have taken it. The pipe lacked a bit of height and the snow slowed us down so much. I am glad I made it."
His fellow countryman Daniel Franck, silver medalist at the Nagano Olympics, took 2nd today. "David Ny has done a fantastic job to fix the pipe," he said, "only all that snow made it tough riding. It was super slow today and a lot of people tried hard with the speed so the amplitude was most important thing to show to the judges today. However, it was fun riding with all those people out there. Italy always has a nice audience."
Markus Hurme from Finland claimed the bronze. "It was hard to do," he said, "and it would have been good to get more training before the competition but they built a good pipe and the shape was fine. It just lacked speed with all that snow but I really enjoyed riding."
1999 Junior World Champion Doriane Vidal from France won the gold in the women's contest. "I was pushing for the gold since I did not want to be second again, like I was two years ago. It was good competition with a strong field so I am glad I could stand the pressure and pull it together."
Norwegian Stine Brun Kjeldaas put out two solid runs and finally claimed the silver. "I would have loved to win this contest," she said. "I felt pretty safe after good results in a row. Doriane had the amplitude while I was doing more technical stuff with a 720 and 540, but it looks like amplitude was more important and most of the riders were struggeling quite hard. I was happy with my riding."
Finnish rider Sari Groenholm took 3rd.
The fourth World Championships will be concluded tomorrow with the snowboard cross.
— Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent
