Snowboarders kick off season at Hintertux Park Opening 2023
For the 19th time, the snowboard community gathered at the Hintertux Glacier from October 6th to 8th, 2023 to start into the season at the Hintertux Park Opening 2023. Beginners, advanced riders, professionals, including illustrious names like Olympic champion Anna Gasser, they all met at the first Opening in Betterpark Hintertux.
Despite the challenging snow conditions, the park team did an incredible job and conjured up a setup that was impressive. Whether on the mountain or in the valley – there was a lot going on – also thanks to the rockers from Sempre Caoz, who got the crowd rocking during the Metal Battle on Saturday evening. The Hintertux Park Opening has once again proven itself as a meeting place for the community, as Hintertux has proven once again that winter starts earlier there.
AIRTIME – Pro-rider Werni Stock from Zillertal hosted Werni’s Transfer Games by Quiksilver, a team session with various transfer options on the jump. A diverse field of riders met in the park to tackle the feature in teams. The young Norwegian Oyvind Kirkhus was the man of the day, he impressed with many technical tricks, including all variations of 1440s and 1620s, and deservedly won most awards of the session. Werni Stock adds: "The Transfer Games were really cool with lots of creative riding. It was something different, everyone celebrated it, both riders and the audience in the park. The setup was sensational. Everyone had fun and showed some really good snowboarding."
METAL BATTLE ROCKED – Michi Schatz and Max Glatzl with the Sane! Gang presented the Sane! Metal Battle Rail contest at the valley station. Hundreds of spectators came and were rewarded with a real jib spectacle and rock band Sempre Caoz live in-concert. In the best conditions riders hit the rail features in the specially constructed arena. They showed creative and versatile riding at high level and thrilled the audience. Jam sessions are fast and always a little chaotic, but that’s exactly what makes it so appealing, because the result is a real firework of tricks. In the women’s category, Austrian Selin Lakatha claimed most of the awards with some of the best tricks of the evening, while Oyvind Kirkhus provided some of the best moments not only in Werni’s Session but also in the Metal Battle, such as his one-foot tricks. At the end his board was destroyed, but he walked home with two more awards. Selin und Oyvind are also the winners of the Rock A Rail Innsbruck wild cards.
THE NEXT GENERATION – A fixture every year is the Kids Shred for the little ones. Snowboard legends Gigi Rüf and Steve Gruber served as coaches with helpful tips and accompanied the young riders. In addition, a Riglet Snowboard Workshop was held together with the Tux elementary school; children were able to make their first attempts on the snowboard right at Fernerhaus.
DEMO – Snowboard and ski brands gathered at Tuxer Fernerhaus with their new products to test. Whether it was Burton’s StepOn binding or Doubledeck’s ISPO Award-winning snowboard, there was lots to discover. With Aleck, Armada, Bataleon, Bent Metal, Burton, Canary Cartel, Capita, Deeluxe, Doubledeck Snowboards, Gnu, Head, Korua Shapes, Lib Tech, Lobster, Nitro, Out Of, Rome, Salomon, Slash by Gigi and Union Bindings.
SCHNITZEL TIME – Full house at the Movie Premiere Night at Tux Center. There was also a real treat with the world premiere of Schnitzel Time, by and with Clemens Millauer, who proudly presented his masterpiece together with his all-Austrian cast Anna Gasser, Gigi Rüf, Werni Stock, Tom Tramnitz, Adrian Krainer & Sani Alibabic. The film is available online from November.