There are many competitions on the snow each winter for amateurs and professionals, in ever more disciplines, but one of the most interesting to emerge in recent years has been the Swatch Skiers Cup which takes place in summer in Chile and in winter in the Alps. Each time Team Europe takes on Team Americas in a contest that has become a bit like The Ashes on snow.
The next contest, the Cup’s fifth outing, rolls in to Zermatt from February 21-27, when one team will break the current 2-2 results balance and move ahead.
Teams compete on a specially created freerride course that includes created terrain park style features, produced by experienced jump shaper, Frenchman Arnaud Kugener.
“It takes a lot of creativity and planning to place the jumps in the right place on the slope. Then my team and I have to build the jumps by hand, but the reward is a powder landing and amazing images!” said Kugener.
The contest’s format keeps the scoring system simple as the judges just compare two riders at a time and chose a winner, lifting a blue card for a winning Team Europe rider, or a red for Team Americas. Easy to follow for spectators too, each winner scores one point the team with the most points at the end is declared the winner.
One of the judges, Australian Woodie Bouma explained the judging process, “In Big Mountain I’ll be looking for good flow and smooth style. A line in extreme terrain is good, but it needs to be done with fluidity and confidence making it look easy – keep the style factor high and you’ll be rewarded for it!”
“Tricks have to be clean with solid grabs – I would rather see good style instead of sketchy tricks,” Canadian judge Philippe Poirier added.
