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Air Ladies II Concludes in Tignes

The event raised 15,000 euros for charity ELA

featured in Events reviews Author Daniel Wishaw, Tignes Reporter Updated

Last year saw the first ever Air Ladies competition go off in Tignes; the event inspired by Marie Martinod had its origins last year on a custom built quarter pipe under lights in Val Claret in Tignes. Last years event was a huge success and as such was bought back to Tignes this year bigger and better!

2015 saw the event move from the quarter pipe into Tignes’ famous super pipe, which had just held the final for the SFR freestyle world cup the week before. Invited to the second annual Air Ladies competition were some of the best freestylers of the moment including recent world cup winner and Tignes superpipe competition runner up Ayana Onosuka, who was amongst four skiers and eight snowboarders to take to the competition under the falling dusk and bright lights.

The second annual Air Ladies competition was run again as a charity event, raising money for ELA (European Association against Leukodystrophies) which brings together families that fight against these rare genetic diseases, with the money being used to stimulate development and research, raise awareness and develop international actions of ELA.

For the running of this event Tignes turned on a beautiful spring night that found the perfect balance between being warm enough for the spectators to be comfortable and cold enough that the half pipe was rideable. The girls used the bottom half of the pipe to throw down their best one trick and get airtime to raise funds for ELA, under the encouragement of pumping music supplied by a DJ.

This year the competition included a special prize, called Sarah’s Crown, inspired by Sarah Burke, the super pipe super star, which was voted by the riders themselves on the night. Sarah’s crown this year was awarded to the skier Ayana Onosuka for sending it big and stylish all night, with the overall winners trophy being presented to snowboarder Holly Crawford who was wowing the crowd with some highly technical flips and spins.

However most importantly the night was for fund raising for ELA and what a success that was! Raising 15,000 euros for the charity, which was presented to the president of the association, Guy Alba, who was enormously thankful.

Overall, another successful running of the Air Ladies and we hope to see all the girls throwing down again next year!

Location

Map of the surrounding area