Jon Olsson Super Sessions Day 2

Words by Jeff Schmuck
Photos by Jeff Schmuck & Erik Wibaeus

The Jon Olsson Super Sessions continued in Trysil, Norway today with the first official day of sessioning.

Following our Saturday night arrival at the immaculate Radisson Hotel in Trysil, the plan was to head up the hill on Sunday afternoon to session the Super Combo Kicker near the barren peak of the mountain. However Mother Nature decided to put a damper on Jon & co's plans by laying down a cold blanket of white-out, making it almost impossible to find the jump let alone hit it.

Jon putting in work...rain or shine, or fog.

Level 1's Josh Berman & PBP's Johnny Decesare marveling at the fine weather

So after a touch of mulling about in the pea soup and some filming by Ian Cosco for the upcoming Chug Life 4, Jon made the call to hold off for more favorable conditions, at which point we all shredded back down to the hotel where the remainder of the athletes who had arrived from Euro Open were waiting to greet us.

Tom Wallisch arrives

Team Down Under: Jossi Wells & Russ Henshaw

After an evening meeting of the minds around Josh Berman's computer to give him our thoughts on the Superunknown entries, an elevator door opened and out came Jacob Wester, who voiced his displeasure over the fact that he was the only one taking advantage of one of the Radisson's many fine amenities, the bowling alley. And since everyone loves Jacob and everyone loves bowling, amidst many a Big Lebowski references we happily made our way down to the basement to hit the lanes for some good times with friends.

Jacob Wester going for the spare

Jossi Wells is damn near as good at bowling as he is at skiing

Following some impressive pin-striking by Jossi Wells and Nate Abbott, a handful of us lead by Peter Sidebo (the main man behind the scenes at JOSS) then partook in some more partying by attending an 80's dance off at the local club which we proceeded to take over JOSS-style.

Team Canada's Damien Cromwell directs traffic for TJ Schiller & Ian Cosco...

...while T-Wall and Berman from Team American scout some metal

This morning then dawned bright and sunny and Jon recommended we try the Super Combo Kicker again in the afternoon. As everyone waited for the big show to kick off, the teams took advantage of the down time and fine weather to scout various other features around the mountain while engaging in some friendly harassment with their opponents about who was going to do what. It is a competition after all.

Team USA doing their best to make Team Canada their bitch

However before we could head up top the dreaded Norwegian clouds began to roll in again and the decision was quickly made to move today's festivities to the Trick Buster at the bottom of the mountain for a twilight session.

The Trick Buster...

Peter Sidebo

The Trick Buster is a scaled-back version of the JOI jump with a healthy amount of hang time, and as day turned to dusk the elite army of athletes, filmmakers and photographers marched towards their war zone.

As the highly-skilled jump team put the proverbially cherry on top of the behemoth, the boys decided to have some mini-shred fun together via a variety of presses, 180's and other shenanigans on the lip of a nearby mellow table.

Team America mini-shred

Jossi Wells

Jon and Andreas then guinead the jump and Super Sessions were offically underway. The guys took their time getting used to the feature and within an hour began throwing a variety of 180's and 3's with a selection of grabs to get things going.

Andreas Håtveit

However just when things were about to get serious, a spiraling wind picked up causing the Red Bull windsock to flutter violently and the majority of the competitors to deck or overshoot from hit-to-hit. Jon then further took advantage of the beauty of his competition's format and suggested they call things off until tomorrow morning to play it safe. Everyone agreed.

Simon Dumont

With five days left here in Norway the guys will have plenty of time to session both of the jumps and earn themselves a bucket of shots in the process, and NS will be bringing you all the action as it goes down. Also make sure to keep checking out www.jon-olsson.com, www.josupersessions.com and www.jacobwester.com for additional, entertaining and informative video coverage, and for the growing number of you out there on Twitter, you can follow regular updates on anything and everything that Team America's Nate Abbott is getting up to at JOSS at http://twitter.com/nabbott.

Nate Abbott. To follow his Twitter from JOSS, click here.

Stay tuned for more from JOSS including an interview with Jon Olsson where he discusses the competition itself and the concepts behind the features, and gives us the lowdown on his new goggle company YNIQ. And here for your viewing pleasure is the second episode of NSTV...