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Halldor Helgason – My All Time Favourite Snowboard Slams

The ones he remembers

Throughout his career Halldor Helgason has put his neck on the line countless times in pursuit of snowboarding mastery, and has taken more heavy hits than most.

He certainly knows a good crunch when he sees one – writing exclusively for Whitelines, Halldor breaks down his all-time favourite slams from the likes of Seb Toots, Gigi Rüf, and of course his brother Eiki

 

6. My Roof Gap Slam from NoToBo

If i have to pick one slam of myself, its going to be the opener shot of our movie NoToBo.

We were doing this step-up roof gap, and I just wanted to make sure I had enough speed to at least clear the gap so we went all in with full speed on our winch. I ended up overshooting it by ten metres and pretty much landing in another wall!

I didn’t even think the wall was going to be a sketchy factor at all with this jump, but after riding it we learned the hard way that no matter what we did, that wall was super sketchy. So when I actually landed my trick I flipped out from the wall!

5. Rainbow Rail Slam

I wasn’t there for this one, but this bail is insanely nasty – I really hope that he or she survived!

4. Gigi Rüf in Futureproof

This bail is one of the most famous slams in snowboarding history, so it deserves its spot on this list.

Gigi Rüf is dropping in on a line in Alaska and all of sudden he can’t brake because of all the debris. Instead he starts straight lining it into an insanely big drop.

For sure one of the sketchiest drops ever, and something you would expect to take him out for the season at least! Instead he just walked away from this slam like a king.

3. Seb Toots Overshoot, Air & Style 2009

This was at my first ever Air & Style, when I got invited to the rookie contest. I have never experienced conditions as icy as what they had at that event. Everyone was feeling sketched out about the jump, and people were just speed-checking and trying to get it going.

“The sound of him hitting the ground was like an explosion”

Nobody wanted to drop first, and then all of a sudden Seb Toots dropped. He had misunderstood the directions about where to start in the in-run and went way, WAY too fast! He over shot the entire jump; I was standing on the knuckle when he hit it, and was still going up when he went past me.

He continued all the way to the flat and the sound of him hitting the ground was like an explosion. The ice was bulletproof as well, so the slam didn’t even leave a mark in landing. I thought he was dead for sure!

Luckily Seb got away with just a broken ankle and a broken wrist, and he was back riding and doing contests later that same season like a king. That is bad ass.

2. Eiki’s second attempt at a triple backflip into pow

We made this jump in Tahoe that had about ten metres (30 feet) of table, but we built it straight up in the air so it pretty much ended up looking like an aerial ski jump. It was only Eiki’s second day back after breaking his collarbone in Oslo during a street trip earlier that season.

Eiki lost the ro-sham-bo, hit the jump first and tried a method, but only made it halfway over the flat. He got up after that and was like, “I really wanna try out a triple backflip on this thing!” We where all super pumped and told him to go again and send it.

“Somehow he survived and was just laughing – all that happened was that he broke his collarbone again”

Eiki took way more speed, popped so much more and ended up overshooting the entire thing to completely flat. He actually landed on a snowmobile track below the landing. Somehow he survived and was just laughing – all that happened was that he broke his collarbone again.

So Eiki ended up having to chill in the US with us for like three weeks. Then when we had a park shoot with Standard Films he decided to start riding again. He did a rocket air on the first park jump, hit his shoulder and broke his collarbone again! That was his season-ender…

1. Eiki’s ender bail shot in Pepping!

We were in Japan in this theme park, filming for Pepping! and looking for cool spots to ride. We didn’t end up finding anything good, but Eiki found this spot that was perfect for something he had been thinking about for a while:

1. Find a spot with two rails.
2. Strap in on top of it.
3. Fall back in a cannonball.
4. Hope that he would complete the flip in some magical way.

But of course it didn’t work, and instead he ended up just doing a perfect half backflip straight onto his head. That is still to this day the best, funniest and stupidest slam I have ever seen and I think it’s going to be hard to top that one! Haha.

 

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