As we told you the 5 finalists of the ripcurl.tv “Win a trip to Abkhazia” comp, took part in the Champs Open last week with the objective to finish first or second among the 5 and win the trip!
Jakob Pavli was one of the finalist and he wrote us in his own words his adventure during the Crans-Montana Champs Open…experience living a TTR 4 star event through the eyes of a stocked am rider!

“Hey guys,
So it all started with me getting up kind of early last monday and going to the airport for a flight to Geneva. After getting to Geneva I jumped on a train and arrived straight to Sierre and took funicular to Crans Montana. Damien from Rip Curl picked me up at the station and took me to the race office to meet the other 4 contestants….

Click for the rest and pictures!

I was a bit supprised, since they’re all french and therefore we had a little language-block. Later we proceeded to our home to drop my stuff.
The place is really sweet, we got whole house, well stuffed with food…luxurius, I like!
Later we went to the place where the rest of RipCurl folks were staying, got to meet few riders (Janne Korpi, Victor Delerue,…) and shoot interviews.
Time for dinner and a couple of beers in Amadeus and back home to get some rest. It had been snowing the whole day and we had problems coming home (BMW sure goes fast on highway, but drifts even on straight snowy street).

Tuesday:
We woke up into beautyful day, nothing but sun and fresh snow. I had to arrange few things with bid, so I met rest of the crew up in the park. Setup was solid: Big kicker with approx 20m flat, smaller one on each side with just meter or two less(but not as much pop), followed by spine(also about 20m long), 2 paralell rails(downbox and straight-down box) and halfpipe for the finish.
I took some powderruns to worm-up but got realy unfortunate when i dropped first time: I decided to speed-check smaller kicker and i took waaaay too much speed. It ended up with concussion, loss of memory, abbrasion and chill out session in RipCurl tent. Other were riding hard too, but some pros really made it a bit to difficult for most of newcomers. Riders were
chargin’ hard on the best trick session with bs10 tail winning on the end.
When i came around and things got better with my head I went to search for powturns instead of getting back on top of the park.Bella Lui turned out to be my last stop, since mountain is a bit too big and there were endless pow runs just next to tiny ski tow. I went to race office, meet the other shredders and went back home to change. After crazy bus ride, we got ready for evening with riders meeting and costume/clown party happening in Amadeus bar. Went home early…what a mistake…next day turned out to be….

Wednesday:
…totally shitty. We got up and realised that it’s still really dark due to massive clouds and strong wind in mountains. Quallis were canceled and we got to chill in our shack with snow fallin’(blown down from Crans Montana) and sun(made clouds go away just around our house for most of the day). A bit boring, but hey…can you blame us?
We went straight to bed on WED, because they sait that weather is going to be really well on thursday.

Thursday:
Got up early and metereologists were finaly right: perfect bluebird day in the park. I felt kind of odd, because of my crash on monday, but this time I judged speed right and riding bick kicker was just really fun. Only problem was mass of people on training, we only made 3 jumps before quallis.
Abkhazia finalists were all taking it easy with rotations to 5,mellow runs on whole course, but pros were going wild with spin-to-win system. Funny: although there were too much people on training, there was nobody on start on time and Zorg was really angry. At the end of day I took some time off and checked powder action again on the same spot I knew from before…bad day before made it just perfect again.
Most of guys were a bit bummed, because they were leaving(job etc.), just me and Jim got to stay. Our crew from Diana didn qualify for the finals and we were ready to take on crazy party tonight. I waited in race office, Jim showed up and escorted me to the bus(other guys took both cars and went home straight after riding). I asked Marion to pick me up, since bus didn’t show up…took a quick shower and we all went to dinner with RipCurl crew. Dinner was lots of fun and we were all ready for last night in CransMontana: MORDOR! Party was really good, 80ies style, we’ve been out ’till 4or5, I
cant even remember.

Friday:
I was motivated to go to mountains just because it was my last day there. I got up at 800 allready and left Jim behind(he slept ’till noon). Sun wasj ust overdooing it: it was just like spring/summer session…hot and sweaty with lots of people showing up and watching the finals. I broke my binding and so I tested gear most of the day, chilled a bit. Sun was burnin’ hard, seemed like true spring/session…way to walley was really slushy in some parts. Again Marion came around to save the day: she drove me down to Sierre catching my last train to airport by 10minutes. Plane being canceled, me having ticket for wrong day, resheduling and getting home by midnight, snowboarding next day back home on Vogel…is just another story.

With big thanks to RipCurl, Damien, Marion and all those guys…this trip was epic, I’m really glad you made me part of it!