Sam Lee Freeskiing: Hochfugen 4*

Last weekend I competed in the Hochfugen 4* FWQ event in Austria.

The trip to Austria was amazing and being in Europe is turning out to be exactly as cool as I hoped it would.
The competition side hasn't worked quite how I imagined it would.
Hochfugen didn't go too well for me. I had everything planned out thoroughly and knew exactly what I was doing but when I got to the top of the venue, unusually, quite a bit of uncertainty crept in to my mind. I had a very late start order and there were delays with half the field crashing and by the time I was in the gate the organisers had closed the zones I had planned to ride as they were fully ripped out.

I managed to pick my self up a bit before setting off, but I still wasn't 100%, I aired off a natural snow booter, landed flatter than planned, side checked, crossed my skis and bailed.

At that point I was to low for my next air so I skied out and made up the rest as I went along. Funnily enough with so many others having a bad day I still ended up 18th.
Although the comp didn't go so well, It really reinforced in me the importance of mental prep before a comp.

The lesson learnt is plan thoroughly and then from the moment the hike up begins it can only be positive thoughts from there on out.

The comp aside, being in Austria was awesome. The day after the comp Ruari Macfarlane and myself had an awesome pow day slaying pillows in the trees at Hochfugen, and that totally fixed all of my problems.

I am now back in Verbier skiing as much as I can before heading down to Andorra on Wednesday for the El Dorado Freeride FWQ 4*.