Shaun Palmer, extraordinary "enfant terrible," was also here in Laax and in the finals, which consist of over 40 heats with six people starting toe-to-heel in full body armor. Three make it to the winner's round, and the other three to the loser's round. This means you can f*&# up one time and still have a chance. Then the winners from the loser's round advance to the next round which, in turn, leads to the finals.

As we said, Shaun is in dem Haus. He is the ruling World Champion, but Philip Conte also came to challenge his teammate and defend his European Boardercross Champion title.

Livin' On Laax Time

On the girl's side, it was Nillard Pilavakis; unbelievable if you saw her riding in the qualifications, but she seems to need the motivation of a head-to-head fight in order to show her true colors. After all these runs, there are six people in the final, final round. It seemed the home snow brought speed to the Swiss girls with newcomers to the podium, Fabienne Reuteler and Kathrin Kellenberger taking second and third. These locals pushed the Austrian supermodels off the podium, leaving Catherine Poetzl in fourth, Gitte Koeck in fifth, Nici Pederzolli in sixth.

The top six men were: Ernst Tuhe (NOR); Ueli Kestenholz (SUI); Oscar Norberg (SWE); Philip Conte (FRA); Shaun Palmer (USA); and, Kri Maierhofer (AUT),

Ernst Tuhe (NOR)
Ernst rides for the Palmer Team, rides softboots and hangs out with Tor and Boirre. He is a Viking and therefore dangerous. After Ernst started the Boardercross comp, he stopped his heavy drinking.

Ueli Kestenholz (SUI)
Ueli is on hard boots. He rides for Scott and the OVO team. He is good looking and all Swiss girls love him. There are posters hanging in the airport. Ueli is a Superstar in Swizerland. He is a Hard Boot rider, but with a lot of style. He likes to eat the AUSTRIAN KAISERSCHMARN, and he doesn't like Japanese filmcrews. He has a good looking girlfriend, and he can really drink a lot, without throwing up.

Uli Kestenholz Keeps Smiling

Oscar Norberg (SWE)
Oscar is a softboot rider. He has been on the Oxbow-team for ages. He is a very good piperider and has good vibration. In Val di Sole at the World Champions he was ranked top-12, and he was pissed. This time he is in the finals, finally. Because that's were Oscar belongs. He had a real bad injury which held him back a little bit from learning new-tricks, but he always has a very smooth and clean style. Years ago the Swedish style was developed by Oscar, the others have learned from him.

Philip Conte (FRA)
Philip is a softboot rider, riding for the Palmer team this year and, even though he's French, he fits in good. His brother, Nicolas, is riding on the LEGENDARY Burton Alpine team. Nicolas is also here, but he didn't make it this far. Nicolas is Philip's twin brother and if you're drunk you mix them up. Philip is also a favorite and still able to win the tour.

Hardboot Waterjump

Kri Maierhofer (AUT)
Kri is a softboot rider, riding for Oxygen. Actually a Freerider, Kri spent the last two years following the tour's every stop. His girlfriend is in the women's finals with top-6. He comes from southeastern Austria, where Schwarzenegger is from. Kri almost won this year, leading until just 10 seconds before the finish, which shows that he is ready to go big. He won $15,000 US this year, and that's just in prize money.

Shaun Palmer (USA)
The legend is alive. Lately, Shaun seems to be more mellow than back in the day, but it seems also that he started to like the scene. There are really good boarders on the World Boardercross Tour and in these finals he faced the other five. While the other five may change, Palmer's name is in every final. Shaun went head-to-head with Ueli Kestenholz in Sölden and this time Ueli won the pre-quals and almost won the qualifiers. In Sölden, he won just about everything — pre-qual and finals. In the pics you can see how close together they were this time. Ueli was ranked 3rd and Palmer 4th, but 22 seconds later, Ueli won. Palmer seemed to respect the situation, but still was a little bit pissed. Anyways, I hope to see Shaun again next year. He still has a little reserve power, of like another 10 years, in his little toe.

The last words: Laax is always a special experience, doesn't matter how often you come here.

— Nils, burning and looting in Switzerland for The Mountain Zone

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