Words by Uri Puig (www.AllTheSki.com)

After many months of hard work by the organizers and Spanish riders Jaime Puigdengoles and Pako Benguerel to host a first class urban big air event, the Barcelona Snow Show was a huge success both on and off the snow that covered the 115-foot tall ramp.

photos: Pep Malo

The event, which had the biggest structure of that kind ever built in Europe, was divided in two days, with the qualifying on Friday and finals on Saturday. The list of participants was filled with most of the best big air riders in the world and some local pros who couldn’t be more stoked to be competing with the likes of Hatveit, Wallisch, Schiller, Henshaw and Vanular.

photo: Esteve Munmany

Eight of the top 10 riders who made finals qualified with double cork variations, and only Patrick Hollaus and the local young gun Noah Albaladejo made it to the finals with stomped flat 9’s with double grabs.

Noah Albaladejo. photo: Pep Malo

Other highlights included some tricks that didn’t make finals like Corey Vanular’s amazing butter cork 9 blunt, Matt Margetts’s signature double and Spriggs’ underflip 5 blunt and switch cork 5 grabbed screamin seamen. Mike Riddle was close to stomping a huge dub cork 12 mute with a crazy shifty in the end, but his skis thought it was too much and exploded out of his feet when he tried to land it on the last blue line.

Corey Vanular. photo Esteve Munmany

Sunday’s finals were simply ridiculous. A screaming crowd of 25,000 witnessed one of the top big air battles of the year, with 10 different nationalities amongst the 10 finalists.

The Superfinals begin. photo: Pep Malo

25,000 people in attendance. photo: Pep Malo

All possible double combinations were stomped, and in the end it was down to Russ Henshaw, Tom Wallisch, TJ Schiller and 17-year-old Elias Ambuhl.

Elias Ambuhl. photo: Esteve Munmany

TJ Schiller. photo: Pako Malo

Tom Wallisch. photo: Esteve Munmany

Let’s save the trick list for the video, but even though Elias was going huge, TJ was close to landing dub 12 mute to tail and Wallisch almost stomped the perfect switch double tail, the roboskier from the Southern Hemisphere won again. Russ Henshaw throws dubs better than most people do straight airs.

Russ Henshaw. photo Esteve Munmany

9,000 € more for the Australian machine and one new event that, if we have to listen to the words of the riders who took place, will become an unavoidable must in the coming years.

Results

1) Russ Henshaw - 92.00 
2) Elias Ambuhl - 90.70
3) Tom Wallisch - 88.70
4) TJ Schiller - 88.00 
5) Andreas Håtveit - 87.00
6) Jon Olsson - 86.50
7) Paddy Graham - 86.00
8) Patrick Hollaus - 78.30
9) Benedikt Mayr - 63.70
10) Noah Albaladejo - 58.30