Stars In The Stadium

I am still trying really hard to finish updating all of my posts. I know I am a few months behind, but I am going to work to get all caught up when I have the chance so don't give up on this blog, just stay tunned and more will follow with time.

At the end of January, the Lahti Sports Complex came to host a stop of the World Snowboard Tour; Stars in the Stadium.

Bright and early I went to the stadium with some of my exchange student friends and we were set to watch all of the various finals (semis, quarter, etc). Ultimately we would be outside for about 10 hours or more.

They built a ramp and then the snowboarders would go off a jump and then come down on the otherside towards the crowd after disapearing for a few brief seconds.
It looked like many of the riders were having quite a lot of trouble with the ramp, because although from this image it looks like it's a straight drop down, there is actually a ledge just above where the rider can be seen going down. This ledge caused problems because the riders would go down from the top, stop at the ledge, and then finally go, and there just wasn't enough length to get really, really good speed for a jump.

Here I am during one of the first events. I had several layers on, but was so cold. That was the first day in Finland I really expirenced the feeling of freezing even though it wasn't very cold at all, only about -8 degrees C.
Because it was so early, there were a few heat lamps but none were turned on, and there was no place to go inside, nor could we leave. It was worth it to wait all day and see everything, but even moving around we were absolutely frozen. Luckily they did have a stand with free coffee that would warm us somewhat. I have never been so cold in my entire life, and definately learned to be more prepared. It was worth it though!

As the hours wore on, there would be many different concerts throughout the day in between the different rounds of competition. I was a bit disappointed, because for some reason which I couldn't understand from the Finnish commentary, the lone American rider decided to not compete in the semifinals even though he qualified. Anyways, the most exciting concert came before the final.

The musician; Cheek, is a famous Finnish rapper and he is very good. It was an amazing concert! If you want to check out Cheek, some of his best songs our; "Syypää sun hymyyn,""Kyyneleet," "Anna mä meen," and "Liekeissä."

From left to right, Charlotte (Germany), me, Emily (Mexico), and Jair (Mexico). Earlier in the day Ailey had also come and we were also with some Au Pair's from Germany. It was so much fun and I really had a great time at my first ever professional snowboarding contest.

Everyone is ready to watch the championship for the Stars in the Stadium snowboarding competition. In the final there were four competitors each with three opportunities to try to stake a claim for the podium. Things started off pretty shaky and I was wondering if anyone would actually land a run, because everyone kept falling. At last some good runs were laid down and a champion was crowned.

It was really cool to watch the snowboarding jumps and tricks performed live in front of me. The atmosphere was nice too. The competition happened to be at the same time as the Winter X-Games back in the USA, so most of the top athletes were competeing there, but there was still a good roster of different pro boarders here.

After the competition the winners recieved medals and the slope style champion (Korpi) was crowned. It was a good night and after that there were a couple more concerts to end the night.