After experiencing the Crans-Montana Rip Curl Champs Open through the eyes of a rider, here is a backstage insight through the lens of a shaper!
Marc V. aka Pull Up from our alcoolik BrOcrew Pinard Prod. made us the great favor of filming and editing a video of his experience of the contest.
As a shaper that means waking up super early to reshape the park, checking the riders perform, partying very hard, drinking lots of beer and other hard stuff starting from 7am, getting some interviews in and most of all having a blast!
Check out this unique video in a true Pinard style!
Marc, big up man and thanks a bunch!

Click for some words by Marc.

From the 1st to the 10th of February 2008, the 17th edition of the Champs Open landed in Crans Montana. For the second year here and after fifteen years in Leysin, the Champs Open is still a legendary contest. Last year the edition was not perfect for some reasons and so the event felt from a 5 star to a 4 star TTR event. So this year we were all motivated to do something big to get this star back. I was working in the shaping crew and I’m very proud to tell you that this was just the best and biggest park in all the Champs Open history. The set up was just perfect, a big table, a huge hip that you can take left or right or in transfer, than two big boxes (one 12m down and one 6m flat 9m down) and then a short superpipe of 5m high and 80m long.

The Champs Open is also a party and I was sad when I’ve seen that there will be no shows or no special big party this year. But the parties were scheduled in two bars of Crans Montana, the Monk’is and the Amadeus. Believe me it was crazy. Nothing big or unbelievable but only good people, beers and true party! Yeah!

So this is the video that I’ve done between my hours of shaping, so some parts of the event are missing like the prize giving. But anyway you can have a good idea about the event between snowboarding, working and parties and also some interviews of the workers.
Enjoy this video and I hope to see you at the Champs Open 2009!

Marc Vaudroz – Pinardproduction