Straight Talk: Private Parks – good or bad for Snowboarding?
Sebbe De Buck, Prime Park Sessions. Photo by Pally Learmond.
This year was an incredible year for the private parks of Saas-Fee and Prime Sessions and we saw an insane amount of never been done before tricks going down daily. There is no question that these private parks are the best places in the world for learning new tricks, which is especially important as we head into an Olympic year. The hype around the Games is no joke and a consequence of that thirst for a medal has changed snowboarding forever – but now you really do have to pay for play. Where does that leave the rider who doesn't have a big national team budget or a major sponsor? Are they going to be left further behind the pack than the ones that do? It's an interesting debate no matter what side of the fence you are on. On the one hand, we are seeing technical freestyle snowboarding progress faster than ever before, but then it's only for the riders that have the cash to do so and some would question if that is really what snowboarding is about. Here are the views from the riders themselves.
Article by Tom Kingsnorth
Sebbe De Buck. Photo via Stubai Zoo.
Sebbe de Buck
For sure, it's good for snowboarding. Those private parks are the only places that still build big jumps normally, it's a camp for the top tier that are pushing the level of snowboarding and it shouldn't be available for every snowboarder because then more people will get bodied on those jumps. I wouldn't be able to afford to go if I paid for it myself either, but I can get the funding I need to hit those jumps because I worked hard and got my results. If you are in the top tier of your country, you will have access to the jumps; everybody that rides them worked their asses off to even be there. You don't let a Sunday league team play in the champions league. Sometimes I do think it attracts the wrong people, but that's only because it is the top tier all the countries are going to put people in and some guys go nuts. They ride on the airbags all summer and they go to Saas-Fee, skip ten steps, and throw quads.
Rene Rinnekangas, Kitzsteinhorn. Photo by Matt Georges.
Rene Rinnekangas:
All of those private camps provide the best place to go snowboarding at that time and the parks are so amazing to ride. The unfortunate part of snowboarding now is that those private parks are only for people who pay for it, but it's an Olympic year and those riders need somewhere to train and I think there will always be questions on if it's fair or not going around. If I had to pay myself, I don't know if I would go and I think I would probably go somewhere else to ride. The beautiful thing about snowboarding is that there's not one right way to do it, so you can get better at snowboarding in different places, even if there are no big jumps. It's not all about doing crazy tricks.
Jesse Augustinus. Photo via RBCP.
Jesse Augustinus:
I gotta be honest and say I don't think it's that cool because they are splitting the snowboard scene in two. You got the guys that have an exclusive camp that cost a couple of thousand euros a week and the ones that can't afford to go at all. I've been invited to camps like that a lot and I always say no. I don't want to be part of it.
Torgeir Bergrem, Laax Open. Photo by Stefan Götschl.
Torgeir Bergrem:
I do love that there are top-notch parks in Europe in the fall because you can't find them if the sessions are not there. So, kudos to Charles in Saas-Fee and kudos to Prime Park for doing it. But I also think that there's a problem that unless you have a lot of money, you can't ride a good park, which makes the gap bigger from being an underdog trying to come up and being an established pro with funding. It's like a double-edged sword because it's definitely sick for us that do get to ride it, but also, I would love to see those kinds of opportunities be given to younger kids that don't have much funding. Right now, it's all about how much money you have or how much money your federation has to get you in those sessions and it's really tough because a lot of the young Norwegians just can't go there. That is the bad part of it. The good part of it is the good people get a lot better, so I don't know... it's a tough question to answer, but I would love to see that quality in parks on a public mountain; that's my take on it.
Ethan Morgan, Betterpark Hintertux. Photo by Beckna.
Ethan Morgan:
I have mixed thoughts about it. On the one hand, obviously, ski resorts don't really have that much money right now and the standards have gone up way higher when it comes down to park building, so it's kind of hard to make a good Park happen – it costs a lot of money. That means the riders have to pay for it if they want to ride a good park and it's obviously pretty damn shitty that it's turned into such an elite thing that only the people who have money or the people who are in national teams can ride these good setups. If you can't ride them, you kind of feel a little bit excluded from the snowboarding world in my opinion. So, on the one hand, I get that these parks need funding to be made, but on the other, it's very sad to see that nothing's happening for the sport and it's more or less about the money for a lot of people. That's just a tough one to support as well.
What’s your take on private parks? Are they good or bad for snowboarding?