Results 121 - 130 of 163
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Gigi Rüf scores the cover and interview in the latest Transworld Snowboard issue. With his latest coverage he is taking over the lead on the exposure o meter. Also nominated as the rider of the year as well as best video part at the TWS awards coming up at the end of Jan, Gigi is starting the new decade as good as it gets.
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A child prodigy, Gigi hails from the Voralberg region in Austrian, on the back side of the St Anton valley. He grew up a child of the mountains and has maintained this simplicity despite his world travels and the international recognition his skills have bestowed. Not your a-typical snowboarder, his slender, light frame is seen as often on the steep summer slopes of his family’s mountain top farm – scythe in hand – as it is descending from helicopters in Alaska or the Canadian ranges – board in hand. Despite Gigi being recognized as a developing talent at the age of 13, he has never lost touch with the simplicity of his upbringing nor let the hype that followed him as his career exploded distort his laid back, carefree and life loving character. He is as grounded today as he was at 13, proudly recently becoming a father of a baby boy with his home town sweat heart. A tweak master, constant innovator, style sergeant with a pack mule work ethic – if there is light, snow and a slope, Gigi is out there playing with it. Gigi doesn’t really ride a snowboard, he dances with it. He doesn’t simply read the terrain, he teases it. His touch and finesse when riding has the precision of a watch maker, the power of a heavy weight boxer and the grace of a ballerina – his style has overtures of a Nic Müller or Jamie Lynn. Outside of his filming duties with Absinthe, he has consistently found time to bag parts with his local crew, Pirate Movie Productions. He created the Back Yard camp, hosted at his Uncle’s remote and isolated Mountain Alm above his village, where he also co-organized the European Nixon Jib Fest with Nic Droz and Romain de Marchi. Gigi’s infectious personality and cheeky laugh is reflected in his riding style and make him a first choice in any planned road trip or shooting project. Be it backcountry, rail, jib line or kicker – Gigi Rüf does it like few others. He is undoubtedly one of the best riders to have ever come out of Austria, Europe – or Planet Earth for that matter!
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Author:Administrator
Hailing from Lofer, a small village butted against the Wilderkaiser in Kitzbül Alps, Austria, Stefan Gimpl is a sort of enigma in Austrian snowboarding. Not really being part of the prevailing snowboards scenes of the time, Gimpl honed his skills at his home resort of Saalbach-Hinterglem in relative isolation to other riders of the same level. He ‘burst’ onto the scene follwing a night session in the Fieberbrunn pipe, busting 3m high b/s 7’s and leaving everyone sessioning the pipe that night thinking, “Who the fuck is that...?”. That one session nailed Gimpl a check out in Onboard Magazine at the age of 16. Gimpl’s international homecoming came shortly afterwards when he beat all odd’s taking out the world famous Air&Style title in front af a frenzied hometown crowd. This was the first of three Air&Style crowns making him the youngest rider to take the title and the only rider to have taken three consequtively. The king of pop, Gimpl always put on power riding performances busting bigger than anyone almost all of the time, and matching that with legs of steel, often stomping a trick several meters into the flat, going a third bigger than everyone on the day. One of eight brothers, Gimpl was not your a typical snowboarder of that time. Modest, quiet, polite and well spoken... He always did rather than said, and always said “Thank you.” after you had just told him that he had just blown your mind. A gentleman, and all round sportsman adept at anything he puts his mind to. Gimpl is an acclaimed golf and tennis player, and avid rock climber.
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"I did this photo shoot in Moscow while visiting the city for a Neverland premiere. They weren't sure if the cover would get the approval from Men's Health in the US. Maybe I didn't seem buff enough. But I guess they were ok with it and now I will be on the news stand all over Russia...yeah so healthy right now." Nicolas Müller
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Another internationally recognized rider that emanated out of the Swiss Engadine scene, Dani Sappa quietly turned heads through out his snowboarding career. Not surprising you might say, considering his riding partners including, Michi Albin, rode more for the love of snowboarding, friends and being in the mountains, than the hype surrounding a maturing snowboarding industry. Happy is a man who can make his hobby his job, and it had to be said Dani was one of the happiest people you would ever meet. Dani’s riding style is reflected in his personality. Solid, no fuss, individual and understated. He had the ability to make the difficult look seemingly effortless. At the height of his career, overnight, Dani suffered what could have been a life threatening blood clot on his knee. Emergency surgery saved both his life and his leg, in effect also changing his personal focus. Following rehabilatation, Dani finished his professional snowboarding career, finishing a degree in computer animation and is now a state of the art motion graphic designer.
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Author:Administrator
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Author:Administrator
Hailing from a small village just outside of Vienna, the flatlands off Austria, Steve owes a great deal of his rise to fame to the Austria Cups, a their National Circuit in the mid 90’s. The Austria Cup’s didn’t launch him into international notoriety, but the crew of friends who soon became the Ästhetikers and an incredible incubator of riders spawning names like Gogo Gossner, Tommy ‘Beckna’ Eberharter, Friedl Kolar, Wolle Nyvelt to name a few. By ‘97, at the height of the SPC Summer Camp days, Steve moved to Austria’s emerging snowboarding hub, the Zillertal, a 45km valley boasting 12 resorts ending at the Hintertux Glacier. In 1998, shortly before the Nagano Olympics, Steve had reached the height of his competitive halfpipe career, coming 2nd to Daniel Franck in the European Championships. The next weekend, Steve was seen hammered a 6am on the outside of his hotel climbing the three stories to get back into his room only hours before coming second to Daniel again in the ISF World Championships. It was almost the last halfpipe contest he ever did. Like Terje Haakonsen, Steve boycotted the Olympics in disgust, watching the finals at Shin Campos’s place in Whistler, which in hindsight, was the start of his filming career. Steve’s riding style can be summed up in one word – STOMP! An uncanny ability to spot a take off and landing from miles away, his power, precision and pedal to the metal style are reminiscent of Kale Stephens or Travis Rice, when Steve stomps a trick it registers as if it was a 7.3 Richter earthquake halfway around the other side of the globe. If not snowboarding, guarenteed you will find Steve on a skateboard, surfboard or on his MX bike. To this day he is still killing it....
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