Transfer Banked Slalom 2016

The Transfer Banked Slalom aka ‘Tournament of Turns’ went down this past weekend and was action packed with high speed turns, critical berms and minimal concern.

All snowboarders were greeted to icy course conditions on the Saturday and the outstanding Terrain Park Crew decided to call it a weather day and run the event on the Sunday. Although there were a few disappointed faces, all snowboarders joined forces for an amazing day ripping around the resort especially in the Cruiser and Antons terrain parks.

All competitors on Sunday were greeted with perfect 4ft high peeling walls, light offshore winds and a sky as blue as blue can ever get….Transfer Banked Slalom 2016 was officially ON!

There was a mix of every type of snowboarder competing in the event from five year old grommies to some of the first ever professional snowboarders from Australia, even some of the world’s best snowboarders from the Northern Hemisphere made the long flight over to compete and hang out.

The course consisted of a critical toilet bowl top turn tunnel section which spat you out into a kilometre long banked slalom track consisting of high speed walls, gaps and the iconic and scary section…Gallina’s Gully.

Austin Sweeten who is definitely one of the best snowboarders in the globe right now gave the word ‘board control’ a whole new meaning taking out first place with a warp speed time of 1:20:71. FIS World Champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin was hot on Austin’s tail just missing out on the Gold with a 1:20:72 and right behind Chumpy in third place was last year’s winner Mathieu Crepel who channeld his high speed surf turns to the glassy ice walls in Gallina’s Gully.

Follow the leader w/ @bryanwfox @quiksilver #radicaltimes

A video posted by Austen Sweetin (@austensweetin) on Aug 15, 2016 at 3:04pm PDT

The standouts of the event were the Grommets and the Women who all dominated the technical course by manoeuvring quickly through all the berms. It was amazing to see the lack of competitive hunger at the top of the course and how everyone was making new shred buddies to ride with. Torah Bright dominated the course with the fastest time in Womens and not far behind her was local shredder Maddy Alexis who’s showing signs of being the potential new Banked Slalom Queen…watch out Torah!

All in all another the 3rd Annual Transfer Banked Slalom once again left all competitors with smiles, a few sore butts and a countdown calendar till it all kicks off again…364 days to go! A massive thanks goes out to all the event sponsors Transfer, Quiksilver, Lib Technologies, Oyuki, Dragon, MammothMountain, Corona and Red Bull.  

Here are the top results from the day:

Open Mens

1. Austin Sweeten | 1:20:71
2. Alex Pullin | 1:20:72
3. Mathieu Crepel | 1:21:06

Open Women 

1. Torah Bright | 1:28:50
2. Maddy Alexis | 1:32:54
3. Biba Turnbull | 1:35:00

Veteran Men 

1. Matthew Gallina | 1:22:54
2. Jason Currie | 1:23:40
3. Damon Hayler | 1:24:03

Junior Men 

1. Carter Mills | 1:27:66
2. Luke Harvey | 1:27:99
3. Evan Bichon | 1:28:11

Junior Women 

1. Tess Coady | 1:37:56
2. Tamara Cowley | 1:45:41
3. Lucinda Joyce | 2:06:39

Grommies 

1. Zephyr Ashe|1:36:03
2. Jesse Parkinson | 1:43.39
3. Thomas Krpan | 1:44:13