Words by Jeff Schmuck

Photos by Dan Brown

The dreary weather continued today in Åre, Sweden of day 11 of the Jon Olsson Super Sessions.

The third to last day of JOSS began with the Swedish Open in Åre's well-manicured Bräcke park, where roughly 50 jibthirsty skiers lined up to vie for the ultimate prize: an invite to tomorrow night's JOI.

Just as he did last year, Jon assisted in helping ramp up the allure of the Swedish Open by both judging and emceeing the event along with helping maintain the course and best of all, offering the winner an invite for tomorrow night. However this year the man himself stepped it up even more for the talented field of competitors in attendance by offering not just the winner a spot, but the top three.

After a long, hard-fought but enjoyable jam-format battle under grey skies and occasional light rain with notable names including Benedict Mayer and Oscar Harlaut (brother of Henrik) along with a host of others, Fridchof Fredriksson came out on top with Steffen Hammre in second and Niklas Eriksson in third. These three will be joining Bobby Brown, Mike Clarke, Kim Boberg, Thomas Doplands and the JOSS competitors tomorrow night at JOI. Congrats gentlemen, and good luck!

Fridchof Fredriksson. JOI-bound

On the JOSS side of things, with only two days left of filming before the edit deadline of 8am Saturday morning, some of the teams were out both all last night shooting more urban (including Team Sweden and Team Europe, who was out until 5am) and for the better part of today (Team America).

In the afternoon the athletes took a break from the last second scramble for footie and piled into the village for a huge autograph signing session for tons of really, really stoked kids. Keep your eyes peeled for 'Chug Life' written in gold on Swedish skiers' goggles straps in the future, because Ian Cosco was one of the first ones there signing and definitely the last one to leave.

Chug Life Worldwide

Oscar

Jacob, Jon, Jossi

Colby & Symms

...even Freeskier's Shay Williams got a poster

After the signings, Jon announced another shoot (this time at night) on the Semi-Floater jump in preparation for tomorrow night's JOI (which the additional athletes invited only to JOI were allowed to hit for the first time), as it was a bit too windy near the City Hip to give it another go.

Team America's Nate Abbott & Tyler Hamlet get set up

Once everyone made the trek to the jump and the filmers and photographers got set up, surprise, surprise, the weather went to shit, as it started to lightly rain, making the in-run and landing pretty damn icy. As a result, many of the competitors opted to play it safe and not hit the juggernaut, despite some of them being in fairly desperate need of more shots. To compromise, an impromptu and super fun session went down off the knuckle of the jump, which saw the likes of Henrik, Symms, Colby, Wallisch and Dumont popping not off the edge of the knuckle, but halfway through the table and airing over it and onto to the landing. It was sick.

Wallisch flatspin 5's the knuckle. Seriously.

However a few of the boys did test their fate on the Semi Floater to try to score some more footage and photos, and although the bulk of them ending up throwing in the towel after a few make out sessions with the icy landing, there were two diamonds in the rough.

Andreas, killing it...again.

Andreas Håtveit continued to show why he is straight up one of the hardest working and gnarliest skiers in the business by throwing down some steezy switch 5's from start to finish, and Bobby Brown was throwing down (hey that rhymed!) some huge cork 7's that helped redeem his frustration of having to watch everyone else hitting the features over the last week.

Teen Heartthrob Bobby Brown

After an hour or two the rain began to worsen (it's pouring as I type this) and everyone decided to call it a night. It's crunch time here at JOSS for the teams with only one day left to film and edit before Saturday's deadline so things are likely about to get even more tense than they've already been over the last 24 hours. I took some time today to sit down with each of the teams to get their thoughts on how challenging this year's installment of JOSS has been, how their entries are coming along, and what they've thought about the event as a whole thus far. So stay tuned to NS for that and continued coverage on everything JOSS, including all the insanity that will surely go down at tomorrow night's JOI.