Nothing against Copper Mountain in Colorado or the Kreischberg in Styria, but if Noah Vicktor had been allowed to choose a World Cup stop for his first podium finish, he would certainly have chosen Laax. In his sixth competition in the Graubünden luxury ski area, the time had come: third place behind the Canadian Cameron Spalding and the US rider Redmond Gerard, just ahead of the Canadian Liam Brearley. A very special moment for the 23-year-old from WSV Bischofswiesen: “I thought the podium would never work out. That was an absolute dream – which is coming true today. I don’t quite realize yet that this is happening at the Laax Open of all places.”
There is indeed a special vibe in this town of 2,000 people, where it feels like every resident not only owns a pair of skis, but also a snowboard. Unlike the World Cup stops in the flat Chur or in the football stadium in Klagenfurt, the spectators here strap on their snowboards after the competition and blast down the valley run – many of them not without picking up a few rails or flying over a kicker along the way. Anyone who climbs into the gondola at the valley station looks snowboard pioneer Jake Burton in the eyes: the man who died of cancer four years ago smiles gently from a huge mural, like Jürgen Klopp in Liverpool. Jake stickers are omnipresent, and everyone knows which Jake is meant. For years, the World Cup stop here bore the name of his company and was considered the most important competition in Europe, the Wimbledon of snowboarders. Burton’s mantra: everything for the rider! His goal: 100 days on the board every year.
While he used to do his swings down from the Crap Sogn Gion mountain station with Shaun White, he later did the same with Mark McMorris, the big air world champion who won 24 medals at X-Games – and sat on his deathbed with his mentor. Burton’s wife Donna says: “The two were best friends, despite an age difference of almost 40 years.”
Achieving the best career result in this atmosphere and leaving legends like McMorris, world champion Markus Kleveland (Norway) and Olympic champion Su Yiming (China) behind him should give Noah Vicktor a huge boost. In the first slopestyle competition of this season, in New Zealand at the beginning of September, he came ninth and finished between 19th and 41st in the four following big air contests – only to be able to deliver the best performance in his favorite competition. Twelfth place in the qualification, ninth place in the semi-finals and then a first final run in which he was dissatisfied with the judges’ assessment: “I brought in a variation of my backside 1620 with a new grab – and landed cleanly. I expected more points in the first run. But Matevz (Pristavec, his coach, editor’s note) said I should still stick with it and drive everything nicer and cleaner.”
In the overall World Cup, Vicktor is now in third place in the slopestyle rankings
It worked: What earned 78.17 points and sixth place in the first round was awarded 83.72 points in the second round – much to Vicktor’s delight: “The course here is awesome. I love Laax every year – and even more so now.” He is now in third place in the slopestyle rankings in the overall World Cup.
It wasn’t just Vicktor that impressed in Laax. Leon Gütl, 23, who also starts for WSV Bischofswiesen, made it to the semi-finals and ended up 19th, two places behind Leon Vockensperger (SC Rosenheim). The 25-year-old had made a much-celebrated comeback two weeks earlier at the Big Air competition in Klagenfurt after breaking his ribs three times during training in November and secured qualification for the World Championships in St. Moritz in March with seventh place. For Annika Morgan (SC Miesbach), however, the Laax Open was already over after qualification. The 22-year-old, who started handicapped after her training fall at Big Air on Kreischberg, completed the overall good performance of Snowboard Germany’s slopestylers in eleventh place. The atmospheric highlight of the Laax Open, the legendary night session with the finale in Europe’s largest halfpipe, took place without German participation. Both Leilani Ettel (SV Pullach) and Christoph Lechner (SC Ostin) failed in the qualification with places 15 and 14. The youngsters with Kona Ettel (SV Pullach) and Anne Hedrich (SC Altglashütten) landed in places 17 and 28 . Olympic eighth-place finisher André Höflich is still struggling with the consequences of his serious knee injury.
The slopestylers now move on to the next competition, in Aspen, Colorado – another iconic place. Noah Vicktor has only tackled the course there once, almost four years ago, when he came 13th. The podium there should also be quite nice.
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