Brits and pieces

Coming to Laax for the Brits is a bit like getting a timeshare (except without the heavy sales pitch and greasy salesman). You know where you re going, you know what you're getting and you know who'll be there.

You know the lift queues will be small, the bars will be busy, the hangovers will hurt and the woman who runs the pizzeria will be grumpy. It's comforting, familiar.

Yet the Brits had a few new things in store for 2008. The first being some shocking weather conditions, the second a new end of week event (the Red Bull Home Run) and the third being a few changes to the town – namely the fact that it appeared to be a building site.

The one thing that hadn't changed was the quality of the snow – there was a ton of it but, being late March, it was starting to get a bit sticky. The footpaths and roads were clear, the meadows at the bottom of the slopes were lush and green and there was more than a sniff of spring in the air. Time to get the sunscreen out then.

I arrived on the Sunday night, missing the practice day on the hill but still in time for the first night out – which included the whole upper floor of the pizzeria (the one with the grumpy woman) singing happy birthday to a highly embarrassed Johno Verity. After that it was off to the Crap Bar for the usual “Who's here, who's here with who and who's injured” first night catch up.

The men's boardercross contest got up close and personal

Boardercross was the first contest on the menu for the snowboarders, as usual. Zoe Gillings is one of the world's top boardercross competitiors now and, hell, does it show. Even in her time trial her riding was smooth and powerful – so much so she qualified in a time that was better than all of the other women and most of the men too. Great too to see Lesley McKenna competing in her first boardercross at the Brits for many years and Laura Berry was getting amongst it too, complete with broken collar bone.

The women's senior contest was fantastic with Zoe taking an early lead, Lesley McKenna in second, Ivy Taylor in third place and Kate Foster hot on their heels in fourth. However Ivy was able to squeeze past Lesley towards the end of the run and nabbed the second spot on the podium.

In the men's contest James Foster was able to hold on to his good start and early lead and win the contest with Michael Arrowsmith coming second, George Springfield third and Ben Knox fourth.

You might remember last year's big air contest was marred by controversy last year when a rider without a British passport won the knock-out format big air contest and was disqualified. This year a large sign hung above the entrance to the rider registration building – NO PASSPORT NO BIB. No messing about this year.

The late-season sticky snow led the organisers to try to start the contests half an hour earlier in the day. Later in the day things got sticky and slushy, making it harder for riders to keep their speed and clear the large knuckles on the landing.

Small in height, but big in talent, Jamie Nicholls was going huge in the qualifiers and brothers Seb and Nate Kern were also looking good. James Carr had a heavy slam on the knuckle and fractured a vertebrae but he was back from hospital the following night, drink in hand and looking fairly fresh in his shiny new back brace.

But it was unsponsored rider Richard Hookes (who Ed Gunn had told us to look out for) who took the title with a cab 900. I don't imagine he'll be unsponsored that much longer with a win like that.

In the women's contest there was a bit of a mishap during the qualifiers. Lucy Passmore was about to attempt a cab 360 but crashed through the sponsorship banner at the end of the jump and left it in pieces. Luckily she was okay – the banner was not.

Lucy Passmore the banner-wrecker

Sam Rogers pulled out a crowd-pleasing truckdriver frontflip in the qualifier to secure her place in the final and performed it textbook once again to take a well deserved second place on the podium. Claire Frost took her first Brits title with a clean frontside 540.

Halfpipe day dawned on Wednesday and something wasn't right. It was snowing.

There wasn't much of an audience – just a group of riders huddling to stay warm at the top of the halfpipe. The few photographers attempting to keep their lenses dry long enough to take pictures crouched behind the giant blue SNO!Zone cubes to try to keep out of the wind.

There was a rider in there somewhere...

MC James Thorne did a sterling job, keeping the riders motivated and the boutique-sized crowd amused with a torrent of useless facts and impressions.

The girl's field was small, as usual, with Lesley McKenna and Kate Foster setting the standard in the qualifiers. Next up were the kids and junior men.

Sparrow Knox did a super stylish, solid run and was met – and pretty much trampled on – by his jubilant family at the bottom of the halfpipe.

That's one of the best things about the Brits – it's a real family event. People bring their parents, children, dogs and grannies. It's easy to get to all the contest locations – the pipe, park, big air and boardercross without having to ride or ski so it's simple for those without snow legs to get a good ringside seat.

The falling snow made frequent clearing the halfpipe a necessity. Every few runs the riders would sideslip down the middle to clear the new snow – accessoried by either jazz hands or a walk-like-an-Egyptian dance, depending on James Thorne's requirements.

As I noted in our blog at the time, the senior men's halfpipe scene is dominated by men with three letter names – Dom, Dan, Ben and Sam. There was also Angus Leith and I couldn't work out how to fit him into this gang until one of the photographers shouted “Yeah Gus!” during one of his runs.

Poor Dan Wakeham wasn't having the best day and bore the brunt of James Thorne's acid tongue in the men's senior qualifiers. Towards the end of one his runs, he popped out of the pipe to ride down the side, missing out his last couple of hits. However he caught an edge and scorpioned, flat on his face on the side of the pipe.

“The man rides an icy pipe for a living but put him in an inch of powder and it's all over!” cried James (or something like that anyway).

Unfortunately things didn't go to well for Dan in the final either and he didn't make the podium. Dom Harington (recently crowned the Europe Cup halfpipe champion) took the title with a big frontside 720, to haakon flip 720, massive frontside air, to Mctwist and alley-oop 540 to finish. Ben kilner picked up silver and Sam Cullum came third.

The high winds did nothing for the audience - or the sponsors' branding

In the women's contest it was a close contest between Kate and Lesley but Kate Foster took her first Brits title – and a good year for it too with her parents present to witness her win.

Thursday it was still dumping – we optimistically headed to the media centre to get the day's start lists, to be told the contest was off and virtually all the mountain was shut, due to the continuing high winds.

The riders who did head up the mountain had to make do with the lower lifts while the wind battered the rest of the mountain. It's funny how powder days can polarise opinion.

“Couldn't see a thing. Did one run and came down,” one person would say.

“Awesome! Couldn't see a thing but it didn't matter, it was brilliant!” another would say.

We stayed home and watched films and then headed to the Crap bar to play darts. The apr?®s live band sessions were continuing ‚Äì there'd been some pretty fun stuff but I'm not sure a metal band really enhanced the air of relaxation you'd hope to get from your apr?®s beers. We ended up with a headache and scarpered off home to put our faces¬†on for the evening's shenanigans.

The Animal party would have been the climax of the event should the slopestyle have taken place – but the postponement left many riders drinking orange juice andothers tucked up in bed. Two of the Goldie Lookin Chain played some new material and some old tunes – an entire room full of Brits shouting ‘Chicken Tikka Masala, chips and rice' must have left the local bar staff wondering what the hell was going on. Next up was DJ Format with some classic soul and funk – not as lively as his MC-accompanied sets but still some fun tunes.

I had to head back to London the next day and missed the final day's action – and most of a night's sleep as I had to get up stupidly early to do the slog back to Zurich airport.

The weather did clear up and the slopestyle was able to take place – with more than 100 people vying for the titles.

The younger riders set the standard for the day with 14-year-old Jamie Nicholls and 16-yearold Aimee Fuller qualifying in first place for the afternoon's finals.

The Red Bull Home Run gets underway (pic courtesy of Red Bull)

Nate Kern took the Animal British Slopestyle title with a run which included a frontside boardslide, 270 off on the top box, a backside disaster on the wall ride and a 50-50 frontside noseslide on the up down kinked rail. On the kickers Nate landed a back to back frontside and backside 900 and cab 720.

Claire Frost landed her second title of the week by winning the women's contest. Her run included a noseslide 270 out on the top box, 360 tailslide on the wall ride, 50-50 noseslide on the kinked rail and a frontside and backside 180 over the medium kickers, finishing off with a big backside 540 over the last kicker. Props too to Laura Berry who took third place despite her broken collarbone.

The new Brits feature to end the week was the Red Bull Home Run. This involved anyone and everyone who wanted to take part racing from the roundhouse building at the top of the home run to the base – just outside the Crap Bar.

To try to spread them out a bit, the riders and skiers first had to race to their boards and strap in (clearly favouring skiers and those in Flow or K2 Cinch bindings). Luckily the home run had been cleared of unsuspecting bystanders so it was only speed-crazed loons in Red Bull bibs on the slopes.

The first male snowboarder home was Ben Kilner and the first female snowboarder was Laura Berry – an awesome triumph given her broken collarbone. She's also not the tallest of riders – reports that she straightlined through the legs of several taller skiers cannot be confirmed at the time of going to press…

But obviously I missed all that and at 6.30am was standing ankle deep in still-falling snow it was hard to believe it was April and the Brits were still in full flow. Even though we didn't go home with our usual goggle tans this year, the powder grins definitely made up for it.