Sam Rogers, Becky Menday, Melissa Bradner Prize Giving

Saturday 21st May
This was the first leg in the Southern Freestyle Series of events, and has now been included as part of the British Snow Tour.
The last time I rode at Swadlincote was over two years ago, where I had one run only while doing the Snow-camp Snowball Rally. On returning for a second time I was really pleased to see a good selection of freestyle features out on the slope. As is often the case on dry slopes the first few runs were very slow, and speed was an issue for all riders, especially the snowboarders. However with lots of lubing being applied to everybody’s boards and skies things began to pick up pace.
Having not been on an artificial surface since the end of last year, I was pleased that my confidence grew with every practice run. I was soon pulling out a good selection of styled tricks.
Although the turnout for the girls was not particularly large, with only 5 girls in total, the standard of the riding was very high and all the girls were soon pulling out there best tricks.

The competition started with a Jam session format from which the 3 female finalists would be picked. In the under 14′s age category there was myself, Cerys Allen and a girl called Amber. We all tried to mix up our runs as much as possible hitting as many different features and kickers with as varied a trick list as possible. After a two hour jam session it was time for a much needed break and some lunch. We then waited to hear the announcement of which girls had made it through to the finals.

I was really pleased to hear that I had been picked as one of the three girls to enter the finals. These would consist of two judged and scored runs, with best run counting.
I was first girl snowboarder to drop in as I was the youngest. I decided on my first run to go for a styled out nose slide on the flat down as this would carry me nicely in to the side hit street rail where I did a lip slide then onto the long black gas pipe with a tweaked out frontside and finally a jib to tail tap on the end of the yellow gas pipe.
After everybody had their first runs it was time to step up again, with a good clean first run in the bag, I was feeling confident to try to be a bit more adventurous on my second run. This consisted of Front 180 to tail press on the box into a front 180 indie grab spin to a front side on the black gas pipe to a jibbed board slide on the yellow gas pipe.
With both my runs over it was time to chill and wait for the judging to finish and the results to be announced.
I was really excited to find that I had taken first place in my age category, but even more amazed to find that I had taken first place in the overall female category.

Cerys Allen, Becky Menday, Amber ? Under 14's Podium

Under 14′s Category
1st Becky Menday
2nd Amber (don’t know the surname, sorry)
3rd Cerys Allen

Overall Womans Category
1st Becky Menday
2nd Samantha Rogers
3rd Melissa Brandner

All the girls were riding amazing and big respect to all of them, was great to see my fellow Boarders Boards team member Cerys Allen riding so well.

So Oakley Grom games in the Chill Factore in Manchester next week, and the rest of the Southern Freestyle Series after that next stop is Chatham then on to Bracknell.

BeXx xx

Becky Menday

http://www.southernfreestyle.co.uk/

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