ALLY’S SEASON SO FAR
n insight into Whitedot team rider Ally Watson’s season so far . . .
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I have been really busy so far this season, I started off in October with a trip to the Hintertux Gletcher to prepare for the London Freeze. Unfortunately the weather was windy and overcast with hard landings on the jumps making it not the best training conditions but it was good to get back on skis after a long summer.
It was onto The London Freeze ‘Best of Brits’ where I ended up 6th place reaching the semi-finals. The rail jam was fun, chilling with Tom Wallish and all the other boys from oversees as well as the homegrown UK boys.
Right after the party I found myself in a motor home heading for Dover on our way to the factory in Poland. It was a long trip but gave me some quality time to get to know Andy a bit more, maybe a little too well! Once we were there we got the chance to check out the production cycle and the skis being made and went over some of the new models including Fred’s ideas for his new Pro Model ski which will be out next fall. We also got the chance to go out for dinner and sample some of the local specialities, my favorite being a Polish soup served in a bread bowl.
After a brief time at home doing a bit of studying and training in the gym for the winter I took the drive from Glasgow to Chamonix. The trip involved a few accidental hours sightseeing in Brussels, but i made it in the end. I spent a couple of weeks in Chamonix getting familiar with the place, it’s a pretty extreme and overwhelming place and I got to enjoy the first couple of decent snowfalls.
My first trip of the season was out to Mayrhofen, to catch up with some of the boys and do some shooting. There was a pretty poor base but i managed to have a really good session with Sebastian Hanneman and Felix Wiemers in Zell am Ziller, hopefully we will cross paths again soon!
After that it was back to Chamonix for a bit of a Whitedot gathering. All the team got to check out the prototype of Fred’s new ski and ski on next years range. We all had an awesome time and got to give some good feedback on the new range.
The following couple of weeks were banging; massive dumps, riding pillows, some of the best face shots ever, finding new zones in the Chamonix valley, watching Candide dominate the world tour to busting around with a crew of kiwi’s and a couple of fin’s. We were working on laying out our backflips and pretty much going rictor, spinning off everything and anything we could find, 100% natural. I even had a touch of tree hopping too!
We are rolling together to the Qualifying Freeride Tour events, should be really fun but a busy month ahead!
At the Engadine Freeride World Qualifier we had some really good times. Congratulations to Sam Smoothy from New Zealand who won. I picked a completely different line to anybody else in the qualifier and hit one of the larger cliffs on the face but unfortunately one of my turns at the top of the face was a bit wild and less controlled so I lost out on being in contention with qualifying. The party was pretty crazy and I had fun playing my first ever ice hockey game the following day, I couldn’t even skate that well but managed to score 4 goals, ha ha!
At the beginning of this week I got a last minute call and was involved in a Lotus catalogue shoot. We were jumping a skier cross style jump over a couple of the cars; it was different but kind of cool, 007 style! I even had my debut as a model with Dan Wakeham, 3 Swedish and 1 Australian chick involving a casino and one of the cars. It will be interesting to see what they will use from the shoot!
I have some news on the sponsorship front with new sponsorship from Forcefield Body Armour and a small sponsorship deal with GoPro helmet cameras. When I get my helmet cam I will begin to be able to film my competition runs as well as some fun lines from the mountains.
I am going to be doing a bit of filming over the next couple weeks with unity-productions around France, Italy and Switzerland once the snow recovers from the fern wind that has just come through, should be fun! May have to follow the snow for a little bit! It’s onto Mystic Experience in Monterose, Aosta over the weekend.
Bang, Bang - It’s been a fun season so far
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