Freestyle News - 16th January 2009

 

The weekend of the 10/11th of Jan heralded the first event of the Halfpipe World Cup Season in Les Contamines, France. Britain was there in force with four six halfpipe athletes and a support team of four.

The squad included Murray Buchan (British Champion), Becky Hammond, James Webb, James Machon and rookies Robert Machon and Josh Fawcett, All of our male athletes are under 20 and looking with beady eyes at the potential for halfpipe to be included as an Olympic event in 2014. Becky was looking to break into the women's top ten at this event whilst the men have been training hard over recent weeks with the expectation of a clutch of top 20 results and for a British male to break into the top ten for the first time.

In the highest standard Women's competition seen in Les Contamines Virginie Faivre (SUI) took the first HP World Cup victory for a Swiss skier.

 

Becky Hammond became the first British skier to qualify for finals in a WC Halfpipe Event. In the night time showcase event and in front of a crowd lining the pipe five deep she put down a smooth run of truck driver, mute grab, alley oop mute, Japan and ally oop 540. Finishing 10th Becky stated “I’m super stoked to have made a world Cup Final and the first Brit to do so. The lots of work I have put into training have paid off however I’m still looking to make top 5 which will take a lot more but I’m still really happy with my progress”.

Xavier Bertoni of France took his first win at this level and Swiss celebrations continued as Nils Lauper took second ahead of Kevin Rolland of France.

 

Murray Buchan came extremely close to making top ten only missing out by 1.4 points He was the top ranked GB male taking 15th spot and equalling the highest place achieved by a British male. His run consisted of a 540 japan, alley oop 540 opp mute, 900 tail, straight tail and finished with a 1080.
Murray stated “I’m really happy I put my run down but am gutted that I was so close to finals but just missed out. I was really happy to compete against such great athletes. It made me push myself and I think I’ve taken a real step forward in my riding”.

 

James Machon was close on Murray’s tail only taking 18th place after falling in the first of two qualifiers, with Josh Fawcett in 23rd, Robert Machon in 32nd and James Webb in 37th.

 

GB Team Manager/Coach Simon Ashton stated “It was a great performance by the British riders and I’m especially pleased for Becky making finals. She’s put in a lot of lonely work to raise her game which is beginning to pay off. The male riders put in some great performances in a seriously tough field. Both Murray and James (Machon) were within a hairs breadth of making finals, on another day they’ll both make it and I believe they learned a lot today about this level of competition and themselves. The other guys put in some great performances with Josh Fawcett showing some real steel at 16 to take 23rd. One final big bonus was Katie Summerhayes, at 13 too young to compete, she trained with the senior and fore ran the World Cup event. She looked comfortable at this level and will certainly be ready to join Becky next year at the senior level and in the finals.

Finally I have to pay a huge amount of credit to the rest of the coaching team of Pat Sharples, Andy Bennett and Paul Webb. Who were all here on a voluntary basis and have been working with many of these guys over the last few years. Its there hard work which has enabled most of these athletes to make it here”

 

Matt Hayward (Canada) World No 1 ranked skier injured his shoulder in the finals dropping him out of contention. Matt stated – “I’m definitely bummed about it, I hope and don’t think it’s a season ending injury. Hopefully I’ll be back for World Champs in Japan. I chose the WC over the Dew Tour in the US because I wanted to retain my title, I really like the WC – it’s always great fun though the pipe wasn’t super great. Don’t worry I’ll be back.”