My story about SuperUnknown XVI

Last year I was lucky to go to the Level 1 Superunknown XVI finals but I wasn't a finalist, so I felt like I should write the story about it and why I was there. Last year I originally wasn't going to enter superunknown because I was dealing with an knee injury in 2018 from the Australian ski season and I didn't think the footage I had was decent enough. I knew how hard it is to get selected and I had entered the year before, but in the 18/19 season in Italy I had met Giorgia Bertoncini and she was very excited that there was a female superunknown. Anyone that has heard of Giorgia and seen her ski it was pretty obvious she had a strong chance, like I knew before I even met her that she would be going!

It was her that convinced me to make an edit because I wasn't really sure and I thank her so much for that! It took me forever to put the edit together because I was using an old laptop, it was so painful I had to upload it every time to watch it play smoothly haha. It was also my first proper edit to put together and that was another reason why I wasn't sure if I would enter at first because I didn't think my laptop I would be able. But I made it to the semifinals, I was very proud and so stoked about it! Like I said I knew how hard it is to get selected, all my footage was in the park with no doubles and I only had one shot were I did a 180 of a cliff.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/929204/Martin-Longhitano-SuperUnknown-XVI-Semi-Finalist

So I tried pretty hard to get the chance to be the wildcard, I was getting most of my friends from Australia and Italy to vote but Tucker won which was very understandable especially after seeing him ski in person his a machine haha. A few weeks past, I was thinking to myself when I was much younger I got invited to do a big air comp and I turned it down because I was shy/intimidated by all the other skiers I felt like I wasn't good enough on jumps and I would always just ski park by myself. I was thinking I wish I just went, it would of being a really good experience to met new people and most likely would help me become a better skier haha friends are so important! It was weird that a day after I got a friend request from Josh Berman on Facebook and then a message popped up, I was like no way!

Unfortunately Simon Grissemann got injured just before superunknown and Josh was asking me if I would like to come be part of it, I could not believe it! I got the message on the night of the 19th of April I think I lost my facebook logging so I can't check haha but I had to be there by the 22nd because we started skiing on the 23rd i'm pretty sure. I was shocked that he wanted me I said are you sure you don't want to get someone else that's closer because I was in Italy and he told me that he doesn't need to replace Simon's spot but would like me to go, I think one or maybe two of the judges had put me down to be in the finals. Which I was so stoked very honored! So I stayed up most of the night booking flights to America and trying to figure it out because this was something I don't want to miss out on.

It was my first time going to America, it's somewhere I've would of always really liked to go but never imagined that I ever would. So I missed my flight... hahaha fucking rookie, I haven't told many people about this because it was so annoying and I don't want to bring it up. I was in the wrong area the guy at airport info booth gave me the wrong information and it was also my fault because I wasn't really onto it. I had to buy another flight and spent basically all the money I saved up throughout the season but to me it was worth it to spend a week at superunknown, my original flight was at 1 pm and was going to arrive a day earlier, but my new one was at 6 am in the morning and I couldn't go home because it was 4 hours away. Had I to stay the night at the airport try to sleep on a chair with half a backrest also I had sun poisoning from a week before and was always spraying a water mist on my face haha but lucky most of it went away, yeah its a real thing its horrible.

I can keep talking about my travel experience but fuck that. I made it to Denver I was really different to what I expected, it was flat I couldn't really see any mountains but the city was really nice, I am a huge fan of southpark, one of the new episodes at the time was making fun all the people riding the electric scooters and they were everywhere haha! I found most people to be really friendly when travailing America. We were all meeting at the Evo store which I've seen ads on NS before, was a cool shop and it was huge. Met up with the whole crew, I was really nervous because I wasn't originally supposed to be there and we had to talking into a camera to do some interviews which made me really uncomfortable haha. It was fun meeting everyone and we were all excited for the week ahead then we all went up to Winter Park that night.

Superunknown is like dream event, it was the best times ever does not feel like an competition! It's like being a kid on Christmas morning for a week straight waking up so excited what will we skiing today, the park crew did an awesome job each feature was fun and challenging. It was my first private park shoot and I have never skied with some many good skiers! We all had different styles and didn't really have to worry about doing the same trick we all approached it differently. Everyone was throwing down, but very unfortunate Giorgia hurt her knee on the first day before we started filming which was really sad and I didn't want to believe it. There was a few injuries throughout the week as you can imagine and quite a few people got sick as well. There is a lot to say but I don't want to carry on, all the riders, filmers and park crew were legends and thank you so much for an amazing experience! It was really cool asking Josh questions about his movies which I and so many people looked up to! This was a perfect why to end my season last year! Thank you everyone that was involved, to my friends and family also to skiing!

Sorry there is a lot of writing, I normally don't write much, so probs a lot of spelling mistakes and grammar.

It looks like there will be no finals this year because of the virus which is a shame, I was in Italy and saw how fast it got out of hand, it was and is so crazy goodluck everyone hopefully this will get sorted soon!

This is my full week at Superunknown XVI

Edited by Matteo Erbisti

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/958154/Martin-s-week-at-SuperUnknown-XVI