As you may have found out by now the European Open slopestyle comp was cancelled due to bad weather and all that jazz…  you can find info about the actual competition here, but let me take you through the day as I experienced it…

I got up at 7 am got some food and was at the lift at 8, ready to go up.

When we got up (everyone who was in heat 1 or 2) we realized right away that we would have to wait in the cantina for the wind to settle before the 1 hour warm-up could start.

After a couple of riders meetings and 4 hours of waiting around the event organizers told us the slopestyle was cancelled, and that an alternative contest would be held either on the top section of the slopestyle course or on a staircase at the bottom of the mountain.

1 hour later we got the news, that the contest turned into a 2 hour railjam in the staircase!

staircase in the background…

To say that people were disappointed would be an understatement. The norwegian guys I was hanging were significantly bummed out since they, and I, all got really good runs in the previous day on the top of the slopestyle course, so a competition up on the course would have been way more appropriate.

After we got down and looked at the dissatisfying staircase I went home to get some food and to catch an hour of sleep before “the big show” – I was soo tired at that point of the day!

When I got back the staircase an hour and a half later a big crowd had gathered and we were ready to get going. A lot of competitors ended up not doing the rail jam in frustration of the whole thing, and none of the norwegians participated in the jam. I think that says a alot…

Judges…

Coming into the rail jam I thought I had pretty good chances and I really wanted to do good. After a little while though I just thought it was an embarrassing experience that I needed to get over with and I actually almost quit a few times, but powered through it. As a result of lacking motivation (and/or skill) I didnt land any good trick… I wanted to do both 270 pretzel 270´s but wasnt even able to do that, even though I usually dont spend too many tries on them.

All in all I didnt enjoy the rail jam one bit even though I was positive coming into it – And I failed miserably, FML. haha.

The rail jam actually dont bother me, Im just bummed I didnt get a chance to do a good slopestyle run this time around.

here is 2 shots Kim filmed of me in Varingskollen in the end of january:

2 pretz 2 from HJ Brandt on Vimeo.

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Guten morgen er´body!

Right now Im sitting the Denver International Airport. I have been traveling for about 24 hours and since I only got 1 hour of sleep  last night due to a good “apre slopestyle party” I slept my way over the atlantic!

I just ate my favorite fast food Taco bell nr 6 combo with a Mountain Dew on the side, mmmm. Michael should be out of his plane any minute now and then we will be on our way up to Breckenridge which is a 2 hour drive away. Cant wait to get to bed!

Ill post a after European Open post tomorrow (with pictures and everything, wohoo).

Until then, check out this clip Nikolaj up from some B-footage of the week we spend in Mayrhofen before the European Open

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The weather sucked today so me and the norwegian guys who qualified only did the rails on the upper part of the course. I upgraded my run a little bit and figured out what to do on the wallride. Pretty happy about how it went.

here is some photos, ill see if I can get some video online later today.

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So we´ve had the European Open qualifiers yesterday after one day of training the day before. The training day went really bad for me and so did the 1 hour warm up before the qualifiers startet – I didnt land the run I wanted to do a single time before the competition started!

The course was really fun this year but I the jumps with icy flat landings and inconsistent speed kept giving me a hard time.

top part of the course (missing the rails)

the rest of the course...

I got one of the highest scores (top 5 of all qualifiers) on the top section of the course, but when I didnt stomp my landings on the jumps it didnt really matter…

8 guys from each heat got a spot in the semis and the best 9th place got a last chance spot. The heat I ended up in was the hardest one to qualify from as it was the heat with most good skiers in it.

My heat got the 9th place qualifier Oscar Harlaut with my in 10th place, getting the high score of anyone from any heat who didnt make it to the semis… bummer.

the run I did was: Unnatural 270 on, 270 on 450 out, wallride, rodeo 900 mute, sw 720 mute, cab 720 japan – my rodeo 9 and sw 7 sucked balls though so not much to say about me not making the cut.

Right now I dont care too much as I am just looking forward to going back to Breck, this time with my best boarder-buddy Michael Damgaard – I cant wait to ski a little bit for myself again and not stress about coming off an injury and having to get shots or getting runs on lock.

There is a small chance someone doesnt show up tomorrow though which will give me a spot in the semis, as I am the first person in line to get in. If I do get into the semis I just want to go all in and do the run I have in my head – no reason to play it safe when only 12 people get to go to finals.

here is the people who qualified from my heat (with me one spot too low):

click here for the whole list

AS I WAS STITTING HERE WRITING THIS I JUST GOT A PHONE CALL  - im in the semis, gotta go up and practice!

later

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Today the weather was good but as the day went on the wind started coming in. The snow in the park and on the various slopes is really hard and on top of that all the landings are pretty flat – not a combo that makes you want to throw bigger tricks!

After my first couple of laps in the park I was happy to see Simon Ericson showed up. Now I dont have to ski all alone till monday when all the other guys are coming – stoked on that!

I did do one run with my helmetcam today, but unfortunately it had switched off before I dropped in, so the slope-style course preview was planing on uploading is gonna have to wait till tomorrow… sorry.

As a tease ill tell you what the setup was like today – not sure if it is going to remain like this for the comp but here it is…

1st hit – either a down-rail or a down-flat-down rail.

2nd hit – C box

3rd hit – 4-5 meter box with a 2 meter drop at the end.

4th hit – wallride?.. I didnt ski the wallride today because it was really hard to stop/speed-check on the super hard packed snow in the landing of it, which is also the in-run to the first jump.

5th hit – 13-15 meter jump

6th hit – 17-18 meter jump

7th hit – 15-16 meter jump

As I just mentioned all the landings are pretty flat and rock hard so I just did a bunch of 360s and sw 540s today, as did Simon. Ill probably start putting my run together tomorrow and do a run thru the park with the cam so you guys can see what it actually looks like.

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We´re done in Mayrhofen for the time being and I am on my way to Laax to get ready for the european open. Its 4.03 AM right now and after 1 hour of sleep last night I am now 2 hours on my way and I have about 7 more hours to go until Im in Laax – 3 hours of waiting, 3 hours by train and about an hour by bus.

Nikolaj dropped me of at the train station in Munich where I am currently sitting just outside of Burger King where I figured they would have free internet, and they did, YES.

Nikolaj is on his way home to film some stuff for RedBull back in copenhagen and then he will head back to Mayrhofen with Rasmus to get some more ski footage. He is gonna put an edit together with some of the B-footage we got this week so look out for that.

Good morning

HJ

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We got some filming done today and I finally got my first couple of shots with RAD of the season. I think I got 3 tricks on the rail you see above…

It was really warm today and I was hiking for quite a while, which was fun, but I got tired pretty fast and my knee and my heel kept bugging me, so unfortunately I had to cut the session short… I feel kinda bad for not performing my best since its only me and Nikolaj here. Its really simple – when I dont do good Nikolaj doesnt get shots for his next movie…

We ended our day on the hill chilling in the good weather, taking pictures and making timelaps

When we got down we talked around the town of mayrhofen (twice) to find a shop where they could make me custom insoles to take pressure of my heel when skiing, but we couldnt find any specialists so I ended up buying a standard arcing sole as a temporary solution – lets hope it helpes! (mayrhofen most be the only place in the alpes where they dont have a 70 year old boot-fitter who can work wonders)

Ill tell you how it goes tomorrow. wish me luck.

HJ

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I have now skied for 2 days since I got hurt 2.5 weeks ago – and I suck! Im trying to do the right thing and just ski around and do safe-tricks, but nothing feels safe right now. I´ve got a whole new setup; new skis, new clothes, inserts in my boots (so my banged up heel gets more support) and new mittens.

I´m not complaining about new stuff but everything just feels weird and now, because of the mittens, I also have to relearn “all” my grabs… I bought mittens to force myself into doing 4 finger grabs instead of 2 finger grabs.

Anyways… Im hanging out here in Mayrhofen with Nikolaj Jungersen and we are trying to get a few shots for RAD films next movie Double Up. We are just skiing the park here and thing are coming along slowly. The park here is really good and a lap only takes about 3 minutes so it wears me out pretty fast since I have just spend over 2 weeks in the bed healing my heel and knee. Im tired and confused so I´m going to cut this update short and post a few photos…

we need to get up earlier tomorrow!

Nikolaj is stoked - even when the cue is long...

Now you know what im gonna look like on the hill for the next couple of weeks

I hate the Austrian kitchen...

but I love my indoor tanning-spot!

later HJ PS: I dont know why the pictures have been turned, but I cant be asked to fix it right now.

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