Words by Gilly Seagrave, photos by Robbie Davies

This year the 2nd April saw blue skies and sunshine it was the early morning of the Playground Jam, ideal you might think, but when it’s been the same scorching weather for two weeks it makes the snow a little bit too much like water and the Avoriaz Chapelle Park had been taking a beating from mother nature. We decided the only way to avoid slushy puppy take offs was to run the comp early and to make sure it ran smoothly so all riders could get as much time riding as they needed to show the judges their skills.

Luckily the amazing parkies of Avoriaz had somehow managed to defy nature and had saved a great park with a ton of features for the girls to show their bulging bag of tricks on: three jumps, one up box, one golf ball jib and a rail line with side on kinks, boxes and the new ‘Analog Module’ with some rails and stairs to play on.

We got things going as soon as possible to avoid the imminent melt. The girls were told the judging was on their best runs but they should mix up their lines to show variation in their riding between the jumps and rails. The tunes were pumping and MC Drew was on the mic to set the scene, entertain the crowds and keep the riders amped.

The girls started on the jump line to get a good run in when the snow was fast,  everyone was charging and it was great to witness so many great female riders hitting the park.
Laura Berry threw down with a front 3, back 3 and a cab 3, sw back 1, with a nice frontside nose bonk on the golf ball. Rose Bromley was stomping her cab 180s and took that to the stair set to show the judges she was meaning business, when asked later how she thought the day went she said ¨It was such a good crack riding with the other girls it really raises the bar and pushes you more¨. Helen Fox got great style points for her shifties, a fs3 off her toes, some bs 180s and was flying over the golf ball jib with ease. The first to hit the Tractor Tyre next to the jump was Polly Baker sizing it up with an air over the top, she’d already had some lovely clean runs on the jumps with textbook grabs stomped with lovely style.

Obvious rail standouts were Helen and Laura, Helen had a lovely switch front blunt on the down rail and some twizzly fancyness on the the flat box and Laura put a few variations down of front board, front board pretzel, boardslide 270 out on the flat box to 50-50 front 1 out on the flat down rail.

A stand out for a few spectators was Olivia Lottman, she came over for the days comp and started the morning hitting the green kickers, she decided that safe was the name of the game and totally tech-ed up those smaller jumps doing all 4 180s then moving on to the 3s, she ended her runs with a few straight airs on the blues (with a little encouragement from the other girls) it was fantastic to see such great progressive riding in just one day.

Once the girls had ridden to their hearts content we stopped and gave the judges some time to work out placings. Andy Nudds, Matt Macwhirter and David Tardif were our judges for the day and did a fantastic job, thanks guys.

Their unanimous decision was:

1st Laura Berry GB – Winning 100£á and a whole bunch of goodies from our sponsors Vans, Burton, Nikita, Neff, Les Ettes and Protest.
2nd Helen Fox GB – Winning Vans Skate Shoes and other goodies.
3rd Rose Bromley GB
4th Polly Baker GB
5th Olivia Lottman GER
6th Ro Kealey GB