From January 21st to January 28th 2007, for the first time in Italy, the famous resort will host the Freestyle World Championship.

A must not to be missed.

by Gaetano Carbonara

 

After having hosted the Snowboard Championship (2001) and several other events of the Freestyle World Cup (2002-2003-2006), the wonderful scenery of Madonna di Campiglio and the Brenta Dolomites will again be the absolute protagonist with a new exciting world show.
Madonna di Campiglio has always been ready to welcome the latest news in the international panorama. A tested organizing system allows Madonna di Campiglio to make new tendencies become true, and to offer itself as the world landmark of the freestyle movement.
This discipline was born back in the 60's in the States and it mirrors the will for change, freedom of expression and creativity of young people of those times: what comes out of it, is a mixture of traditional alpine skiing and acrobatic disciplines. In nearly 50 years of history, the freestyle has gone through several changes until it has become a true olympic sport discipline. From the States to Oceania, passing through Europe and China, this spectacular type of sport does not know any boundaries, it unites people and far-off cultures in every sense, giving a fine example of globalization.
To speak in real terms, the competitions accepted in this World Championship are four:
- MOGULS, the queen hurdle of the freestyle; the athletes must cover in the quickest possible time a steep drop and a straight made of bumps and two jumps, one placed in the middle of the course, the other one towards the end. Muscles and agility must not be missing if you want to gain a result.
- AERIALS, technics and style rule this competition, that has a qualifying round before the actual finals. The skiers perform acrobatic jumps.
In every single run athletes have to perform 2 types of jump, after having declared the program and the ski-jumps they want to use.
5 out of 7 umpires must evaluate the jump, that starts from the actual moment of the "take-off", and include height, length, position of the body, together with the accuracy and neatness of the whole performance. Since every "take-off" is followed by a "landing", the last two judges give an evaluation mark to this final, but equally important, part of the trial, deducting points if athletes lose balance or, even worse, fall off.
The total mark given by the jury gets multiplied by the coefficient of difficulty of the jump performed obtaining then the final score.
- SKICROSS: 4 or 6 skiers dash forward at the same time at full speed on a slope full of bumps, parabolic curves and jumps, trying to cut the finish line before the others, qualifying for the following turn and so on, until the finals.
What you need in this kind of discipline is plenty of recklessness, reflexes and a quick glance in order to choose the best trajectories.
- HALF-PIPE: the athletes must enter a semi-tubolar structure obtained thanks to special machines, they then have to perform several jumps and show the most spectacular evolutions. The more difficult the figures and the higher their number, the higher the final score.
The evaluation takes into consideration the neatness of the performance and it may diminuish the final score in case of slippings.
Fantasy and control over the body are the right mix to aim at the highest results.
Let's name a few of those athletes who are real protagonists. The Canadian Jennifer Heil for instance, uncontested dominating queen on the bumps, will have to defend herself from the assaults of the French Sandra Laoura, the Swedish Sara Kjellin, the Japanese Aiko Uemura, and other Canadians such as Tristi Richards.
Italy promise is Deborah Scanzio, who got the 9th place at the Olympics in Turin. There won't be the Norwegian Kari Traa who, after winning the silver medal, has abandoned Freestyle to dedicate herself completely to the catwalk world.
As far as reguards men, the tipped to win one for the bumps is the Australian champion Dale Begg-Smith, golden medal in Turin 2006 and winner of the World Cup Competition in Madonna di Campiglio last year.
For the jumps, held on the snow of "Belvedere", the favourites are the Chinese Han Xiaopeng - fresh olympic gold, and the Belarus Dmitri Dashinski, the Russian Vladimir Lebedev, the Canadian Kyle Nissen. Having said that though, there are many who are expecting a young Finnish, Russian or Canadian to win. As to Italy, the spotlight is on Walter Bormolini, 18th in Turin and on Mattia Pegorari.
There are all the ingredients and the protagonists to witness an exciting and highly spectacular World Championship. The athletes give their best and can be extremely spectacular in their acrobatics, also thanks to the technical progress reached through the materials they use, beside their excellent technical ability. If you think about it, aeronautics technology had to be applied, in order to perfectly match the fundamental parametres such as bending, torsion, ability of rotation,side guide, stability, weight and damping.
Theatre of the competitions is - as usual - the "canalone" Miramonti.
The freestyle World Championship 2007 in Madonna di Campiglio is not merely reckless agonism, participants' skills, numbers, scores, timings and medals: this movement is surrounded by parties, music and entertainment, and it certainly will transform Madonna di Campiglio into an exchange and meeting place.