At 12:30 Saturday the crowd was ready to watch the finals. The technical level was extremely high and all the riders gave their best. Mike Michalchuk/CAN - Mr. Rodeo - impressed judges and spectators with really stylish BS Rodeos and ended up in 3rd place.
Xaver Hoffmann/GER was pulling Switch 720s double grabbed - unbelievable - and the highest and most stylish backside airs and indy nosebones. For his 3rd run Xaver earned the highest points of the day: 36.2 points, and he made it to the top of the podium.
"Well, it's unbelievable. I can't believe it now. Wow, I'm so stoked!" Hoffmann said.
 |
|
|
|
| "Rumors said that rapper Coolio had cancelled his gig in Germany to come to Laax to visit his friend Snoop Dogg. You can believe me it was true. I saw Coolio on Sunday on the parking lot..." |
|
|
|
|
The Swiss Olympic champion Gian Simmen showed tricky and high jumps with a good variation which secured him rank 2. Although Fabien Rohrer/SUI was one of the best riders of the day, he earned only 8th. He showed us unbelievable rotations (900s of course), but he forgot that motion tricks are important too.
All the spectators were impressed by his riding, I've never seen him ride so well. So, there were a lot of discussions, why Fab wasn't on the podium. One of the judges told me that just ONE motion trick more would have been the victory for Fab. Well, that's bad luck ....
In the women's final Michele Taggart/USA was unbeatable. She got the highest points in all three runs. Nicola Thost impressed with high and stylish 540s and 720s, but at the end she had three points less than Michele.
All in all the girls showed a great final where 540s were usual and also McTwists could be seen. The big surprise in the women's finals was the 16-year-old Swiss Pauline Richon (ISF Combined Junior World Champion 1998) who competed for the first time in a World Series. She made it into the finals with her rad and stylish riding and ended up in 5th place. Congrats!
It seemed that the Freestylers couldn't get enough on this gorgeous Saturday and competed once again in the evening - this time on the Straight Jump. The HP finalists and a few other riders competed at this contest which was run in a jam format. All the riders had 50 minutes time to do as many jumps as possible. Fantastic tricks like BS 900s, front loop 360s and rodeo flips were shown in a very high and smooth way.
|
Kjeldaas and Coolio
[click]
|
The guy, who showed the most impressive performance was David Pitschi from Switzerland who earned the biggest part of the US$10,000 prize money. Again Pauline Richon showed that girls can sometimes be better than their male colleagues with her BS Rodeo.
Later everybody showed up in the Dance Garage to see Snoop Dogg, who lost the "Doggy" between Snoop Dogg somehow. It didn't matter that he was in prison for murder, the crowd enjoyed his performance, that was the most important thing. Rumors said that Rapper Coolio had cancelled his gig in Germany to come to Laax to visit his friend Snoop Dogg.
You can believe me it was true. I saw Coolio on Sunday on the parking lot. Later on I went to the Crap Bar, where all the German riders and some others celebrated Xaver's victory. Free beer did the rest and Max Plötzeneder/AUT and Patrik van der Graaf/NL showed a ... hmm, lets say - kind of gay dance show. Everybody knows they are not gay, so it was a lot of fun to watch them ...it was just the alcohol who let them dance like this...
— Birgit Gruber, Mountain Zone European Correspondent
© Copyright 1998 The Zone Network