Ok I admit I was apprehensive about competing in Röldal. Previously, I had crashed both at the Revelstoke and Chamonix stops of the Swatch Freeride World Tour and the pressure was on to do well in Röldal or say goodbye to qualifying for the finals in Verbier – the highlight of the tour. But once I had arrived in Röldal at the very comfortable Röldal Terrasse Hotel, albeit to pouring rain, I was able to just relax and enjoy the ride. I managed to forget about overall rankings and just focus on the competition at hand. Due to the extremely icy conditions, it was decided that the original competition face we had inspected was too unsafe to go ahead. Also the second option had to be discarded after discovering boiler plate ice and unsafe conditions. It was the third option in the end which became the competition face, so for the riders it was extremely important to be flexible and quick off the mark to pick and memorize a line.
I chose a simple line I knew I would be able to find without any problems. The competitors were flown to the start in the heli to save time, a very good decision since the last competitor must have descended around 4:00pm. I felt pretty good at the start, finally not so nervous anymore, and found my line without any problems. The upper third of the venue was extremely icy, which we were aware of. The rest of the venue however offered great snow conditions with around 10cm of fresh powder. I skied a fluid line close to the fall line with 4 cleanly stomped drops, I was really happy with my skiing at the end of my run. I came in second after Christine Hargin, skiing almost the same line as me, however with more speed, especially over her features. That’s something I’m working on right now and hope to improve for the next stop in Fieberbrunn on 10 March.
