Nothing is quite like Unrailistic. The craziest rail features, the world's best rail skiers, and some total curveballs. It's a clever event too, it's pretty out there but unlike the invitational contests (Kimbo, SuperUnknown) and big bucks events (Nines etc), it really does translate to something watchable by a mainstream audience. It's wild, it actually pushes the boundaries of skiing but it also plays on national TV in Sweden and it's a crazy show for anyone who watches, even if they don't really understand the tech tricks. It's also part of Åre's closing weekend, meaning there were a shitload of people there, which is always fun for the riders.
Red Bull also did a great job of producing the show too, fun to watch but easily understandable. They missed a few tricks in the production but they'll get there. It's easy to go too 'core' and forget that for our little niche of skiing to survive, we need people to actually watch it, to aspire to it, to buy products. To me, Unrailistic seems a great middle ground. It's crazy, inspiring but also consumable.
The format was interesting, with the best four features adding up to your final score out of 100. You could crash other features, revert, skip features to get speed, etc. And you got bonus points depending on how you did on best trick. It felt like a fun middle ground between a comp run and a jam session. Rather than recap the runs, I want to talk about the features. The monster 'double-double S thing' seemed impossible but Matej and Andreas showed up on it during best trick. The giant rainbow is frankly terrifying, and a 120ft down rail is a thing of competition nightmares, though Jennie Lee made short work of it in best trick. The top box featured some sort of flames, so I was really hoping whoever was controlling that didn't fuck up and roast someone, literally.
There were, of course, some big highlights too:
- Lisa Zimmerman is so back. The front swap p4 on the dancefloor rail was super sick.
- Johanne Killi out of retirement to the top spot, much like her compatriot.. Stomped the huge rainbow, 2p2 on the down rail
- Jennie Lee has the best style ever, and seemingly magnets in her boots
- Henrik threw down on the opening run. Switch 2 onto the rainbow, 5-swap on the multi-feature, cork 8 blunt out.
- Joel Magnusson got called loose but lit by TJ Schiller, which has to be a career highlight. He had a very complete run and got a bit underscored IMO.
- Evan McEachran: Bodyslide flip out, greased the long down rail, triple transfer front 4, double swap on the rainbow. Interesting scoring here too.
- Wallisch: Back swap (3 swap second run) on the triple transfer and 2p4 the pool rail.
- Nico P: 180 switch wallride 180/360 at mach 1000 (and front 3swap on the down rail).
- Jesper: Bodyslide wallride hand drag 2 out the dancefloor, three swap cont. 6 on the rainbow.
- Matej: Front swap cont 8 on the dancefloor rail, stomped the trampoline feature + best trick bonus.
- Colby S: Back 3 swap cont 4 on the gap rail, back swap front swap p2 on the rainbow.
- Theo Thoren: Front swap transfer to back 3 swap transfer on the multi-rail.
- Emil: Throwing the hand drag dub on the rainbow for nothing
- Andreas: Nugget 5 out was bonkers, 270 nose landholding on the rainbow, front swap cont 6 on the wave. Winner winner chicken dinner.
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Luckily you can watch the whole event here for yourself:
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Results:
Women:
1. Johanne Killi
2. Lisa Zimmerman
3. Jennie-Lee Burmansson
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Men:
1. Andreas Hatveit
2. Matej Svancer
3. Jesper Tjader.
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