Switzerland is calling and we are coming. In the beginning of this week it was dumping in Innsbruck, Austria, as much as a meter in the city, thus the traffic got mixed up and so did we. Before going to Switzerland, we had to use that new snow so we spent the day cruising Innsbruck with our boards, having cars pull us through the middle of the city.

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One guy was filming and we had one accident and one police ticket. After all was said and done, we were stoked and tired. I reached Laax on Wednesday evening since I had to wait quite a long time for my ride from Hasi, Burton Team Manager. But that's okay since he is a good friend of mine, and it was an easy ride into the GRAUBÜNDNER LAND in the south of Switzerland.

The rider's meetings took place near the lift station, and that's where everybody met for the riders' dinner on Thursday in which there were little discussions about the icy pipe, which everyone had expected. But as a gift for not complaining, the weather stayed great every day. The temperatures are slightly over the freezing point, really nice. And now more about today:

Friday 26th of November 1999 - Qualification Day, Halfpipe
Today was qualification day. The new judging system took over Europe. All girls are in one heat and the boys are split up into four heats with 22 riders per heat. The top 12 girls and the top six boys per heat advance to the semi-finals, which will take place tomorrow along with the finals. This guarantees equal pipe conditions for the riders in each group. (Good thing everything is written on a internet-mag, otherwise I'd have to explain this system for hours and hours.) So today quite a lot of good riders were wiped out and had to go home already. But a lot of young and new riders advanced to the semi-finals, such as:

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Heikki Sorsa (FIN)
This is a rider to remember; he finished 5th in his heat. Sorsa is still young, somewhere around 16 or 17, and is on the Burton team. In this year's Burton summer camp he was already representing big time. And two years ago in Grindelwald he missed a photo-op with me because he drank a couple of beers in the afternoon. After all, he fits into our scene here and will for sure be one of the fresh rockers.

Nicolas Müller (SUI)
Sweet style and rocking, rocking, rocking. He and Freddy Kalbermatten, who are good friends, were the first people I met this morning. They were taking the wax off their boards. Müller almost won the Junior World Cup and will for sure win a world series within this season. He is 18 and comes from the German speaking part of Switzerland. He finished 1st in the last heat today and is a favorite. As for Freddy, he showed me THE BLUE WINDOW sticker on his board that he screwed around with. It's the sticker of his former sponsor and they had tried to forbid him several things. Kinda nice idea.

Jonas Emery (SUI)
Let's see if this might be. Emery is a artist and enfant terrible and he can play the devil-sticks and also juggle really well. He is a artist on the ground and in the air. He finished 6th in his group and will compete tomorrow. The winner of Sölden's big air shows that this wouldn't be the last of his gigs. Let's see if his nerves hold. Emery comes from Sierre in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and is good friends with Romain de Marchie, who is hanging out as well, though he is not competing.

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Daniel Franck (NOR)
The real Viking came along. Daniel finished today 6th in his group and barely made it to the semi-finals. He didn't really like the pipe too much. Too icy, he said, but also too early, I would say. At this time the snow is not really there. In fact, there's more snow in Innsbruck. But Daniel will maybe have another day tomorrow. I personally hope that he will and I hope he'll enjoy the pipe, so we can see a great thing going on.

Other notable male finishers: Markus Hurme (FIN), Xaver Hoffmann (GER), Jan Michelis (GER).

On the girl's side everything went to Nici Pederzolli (AUT). She won the only heat there was and just behind her was Pauline Richot (SUI). Nicola Thost left for some powder runs, saying the bulletproof pipe took a toll on her feet. Doriane Vidal (FRA), the freestyle girl who recently came back to the ISF, finished 3rd. With her abilities and professionalism, her riding really belongs to the ISF. Anne Molin finished 6th.

Fabien Rohrer (SUI), the world tour winner in '97 and '98, has a bad knee and is producing for a Swiss TV station called STAR TV. He can put on a good TV show, for sure. I gotta go to the bar now to meet him; haven`t seen him for quite a bit. Gotta go.

— Nils, MountainZone.com European Correspondent