March
March
After we emerged from our Olympic bunker, it turned out there was still way more snowboarding to be had from 2014, and so as March got underway so did spring. Controversial comedy as British ski instructors were actually arrested in France for teaching, before it emerged that despite their claims they had actually been breaking the law. For over ten years.
Contests carried on, most noticeably the Burton US Open and Arctic Challenge, both of which had Terje Haakonsen involved and thus both claimed to have ‘saved snowboarding’ from the clutches of FIS (there will be no Arctic Challenge this winter and Terje has since distanced himself from the TTR/WST). Red Bull, after ditching the Ultra-Natural event for 2014, went all out for residual interest in halfpipe from Sochi and built a huge double pipe, which young Taylor Gold went on to tame.
Brilliantly though, snowboarding scored another huge win with a successful first outing at the Winter Paralympics, with Bibian Mentel and Evan Strong taking home the gold medals in boardercross.
By this time the Freeride World Tour was wrapping up, leaving it down to the Verbier Xtreme to settle the victors. The Bec des Roses was at a terrifying low tide due to a poor snow year, but that didn’t stop gentleman/mad-man Sascha Hamm from straight-lining the entire thing, crashing out but still being awarded third for his balls. That was enough to get him the bronze for the whole season and the first ever overall podium for a British freerider! Ralph Backstrom took the win on the day, but Swiss Emil Badoux took home the overall win after an exhausting season.
That wasn’t the only British bronze for March though: as the month drew to a close Jenny Jones came in joint third at the first ever Nine Queens event that allowed snowboarders to compete, finishing off her competitive season in style!