Sometimes, plan B works better than the A one… The weather was really bad in Val d’Isère for the Queen of the Valpark last week, and the organisation had to cancel the slopestyle due to wind and fog. Instead, the girls had to make a short video edit with the footage of the day. It was so funny and creative, that nobody missed the slopestyle comp.

Words by Lucy Paltz, photos by Andy Parant

After 3 years of sun for The Queen of the Valpark weekend, the weather didn’t want to be nice anymore. The first day of this all girls event is always the coaching day, that is open to everyone. It was really snowy, but twenty girls came riding in the park despite the bad visibility. The atmosphere was really friendly, with everyone cheering for the others, helping them to improve their skills. In the end every girls went back home with a little gift, some new friends and a big smile !

For the second day, a lot of really good girls from the French snowboard scene (Marion Haerty, Anouck Grau, Clémence Grimal, Emma Bernard, Alexia le Droumaguet, Lou Chabelard) and two British girls (Vicci Miller & Laura Berry) came to Val d’Isère to compete in the scheduled slopestyle event. Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that the comp had to be cancelled, but since all the girls were really excited about the event, it would have been a shame to send them back home. So instead the organisers improvised and announced a little “video edit contest” instead! In teams of two girls, the riders were allowed to film whatever they want: snowpark, street, etc… Only guideline was, that their edits had to be fun and full of good snowboarding. Brits Vicci and Laura had especially fluid imagination and came up with a Zombie story, while Marion and Anouck wanted to illustrate a “boys vs girls” duel – for which Marion luckily had fake mustaches ready in her bag. You can imagine the fun we had watching them…

At the end of the day, all the girls meet at the Roxy Shop, to have a drink and to watch their footage. And they couldn’t stop laughing, when they saw the ideas the others have had – crazy girls all together!

After one week of editing, the girls sent their videos to the judges: Margot Rozies & Marion Gouwy, who had one hell of a time making such a difficult choice… In the end it came down to Marion & Anouck’s “Boys Vs Girls”, as it was the perfect mix between a short funny story and a good snowboarding with some great rail tricks.

So congrats and see you next year!