September 9, 2009

Perfect snow conditions await the athletes who have traveled around the globe for the resurrection of one of the worlds most explosive snow events, the World Heli Challenge.

VnC’s award-winning cocktails are a unique new “bartender in a bottle” concept, designed by a bunch of innovative Kiwi’s who saw an opportunity to combine all natural ingredients with New Zealand’s best quality vodka. The VnC classic cocktail range uses only premium ingredients and 100% natural fruit juices, with no artificial additives, preservatives or colours.

VnC’s award-winning cocktails are a unique new “bartender in a bottle” concept, designed by a bunch of innovative Kiwi’s who saw an opportunity to combine all natural ingredients with New Zealand’s best quality vodka. The VnC classic cocktail range uses only premium ingredients and 100% natural fruit juices, with no artificial additives, preservatives or colours.

In the past year VnC Cocktails have exploded across NZ and their popularity is spreading around the world, with these unique cocktails being exported far and wide to China, India, Canada, USA, Mexico, UK and France.

VnC Cocktails’ range of spine-tingling flavours includes Pomegranate Cosmopolitan, Feijoa & Apple, Vodka Mojito, Pacific Mai Tai, Strawberry Daiquiri and Margarita.

HarroArt and The World Heli Challenge. Tony Harrington is one of the worlds leading action sports and lifestyle photographers who’s always out on the edge creating something new and exotic in the realm of media savvy projects. The World Heli Challenge was created in 1995 as a way for a group of elite athletes to come together and share the experience of flying around the mountains in helicopters and pushing the boundaries of the sport.

The fallout effects of the September 11th New York bombings caused the international sponsorship market to collapse and the event took a rest for the past 8 years. Its since forever retained its legendary status and now roars back to life as powerful as the horsepower of the helicopters that airlift over 70 athletes, media, event and safety crew into the alpine environment for the most explosive event action on snow.

Source: Multicorriente.com

The World Heli Challenge has always been heralded as one of the world’s most legendary big mountain ski and snowboard events, praised and idolized by athletes and the industry around the world for the past fifteen years.

Since 2001 the event lay dormant, just waiting for the right time to relaunch on to the international event calendar. True to its colourful character, it did just this in 2009 and went beyond what thought possible.

In brilliant weather and snow conditions, the “VnC Cocktail Downhill” brought the house down in adrenaline and camaraderie amongst the athletes. Starting high on a ridgeline above the Makarora Valley, first skiers, then boarders dropped in, all racing each other head to head to the bottom finish line. There are no rules and there are no regulations. This is a form of freeriding that is part of us from a young age. Every skier or boarder has grown up racing your mates down to the bottom of the hill and this is exactly what this event is about, its just that we use helicopters to get to the top of big mountains and take it to another level.

Line honors in the final event, the “VnC Cocktail Downhill”, went to Ted Davenport (ski), Jackie Passo (Ski), Ralph Backstrom (Snowboard) and Maria Kuzma (Snowboard) and topped off 3 incredible days of competition. 

The athletes had no idea what was in store for them next. An “Expression Session” jump was built with people flying everywhere, including Mike Wilson throwing a triple back somersault. But then came the real surprise, instead of being helicoptered back down to the base, everyone was dropped of on the bank of the Makarora River to awaiting jet boats for a fast and furious ride back to the staging area.

With the completion of this final event, the overall World Heli Challenge titles were awarded to Ted Davenport (Men’s Ski), Andy Finch (Men’s Snowboard), Janina Kuzma (Women’s Ski) and Maria Kuzma (Women’s Snowboard).

Ted Davenport (U.S.) recaps “The World Heli Challenge has been amazing! We were blessed with epic weather, epic conditions and incredible venues. Every day I was blown away by where we were dropped off at, I felt like a kid in a candy store!”.

Overall snowboard winner Andy Finch (U.S.) shouts out “I had my best day ever in this event, I know that’s a big claim, but its my best day ever in snowboarding and as cheesy as that is, its money!” 

The World Heli Challenge was filmed on HD Definition and 16mm film. Using an Aerial Cineflex, the production team pulled out all stops to ensure that that the quality of the global TV production matches the dramatic location, the incredible talent of the athletes and mind blowing action that is the World Heli Challenge. A 2 part TV series will be screened on TV networks globally from November 2009. 

The helicopter accessed competition maybe over, but there’s still plenty of adventure related activities including sky diving, bungy jumping and this Saturday nights grand finale music lineup of Matt Reardon, Drew Campbell and the Slur Tones headlining the “Afterburner Party” at Lake Hawea Hotel.

Source: NZsnowboard.com

Another perfect day yesterday greeted the World Heli Challenge crew. The “VnC Cocktail Downhill” was nothing short of an epic adventure for all – in many ways.

The event itself was as hard core as snow sports get. The goal is to find out who in the event was the fastest person on snow. Athletes raced head to head at mind boggling speeds. No rules, no regulations, just pure focus and adrenaline.

The top results of the VnC Cocktail Downhill are:

Ski Mens

1st Ted Davenport (US)

2nd Geoff Small (NZ)

3rd Geoff Vince (France)

Ski Women

1st Jackie Passo (US)

2nd Janina Kuzma (NZ)

3rd Ingrid Backstrom (US)

Snowboard Mens

1st Ralph Backstrom (US)

2nd Andy Finch (US)

3rd Darren Powell (Australia)

Snowboard Women

1st Maria Kuzma (NZ)

2nd Susan Mol (US)

3rd Amber Schuecker (Australia)

The finish of the race was just the kick off to a crazy afternoon of fun, adventure and lifestyle. The VnC Ice Bar served frozen cocktails as athletes sessioned a windlip, throwing down an array of single, double and even triple flips! But that wasn’t all! The athletes had no idea that when they were flown off the mountain they would land on the Makarora river to awaiting Wilkin River Jets and jet boated back to the heli base.

Source: wheresharro.com

Friday, August 28, 2009 at 6:30pm - Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 12:00pm

Wanaka, New Zealand

Based in Wanaka, NZ, from the 28th August – 12th September a large team of Skiers, Snowboarders, Media, Judges, Pilots, Mountain Guides, Organisers, Sponsors plus many others will be on stand by waiting for perfect snow conditions !!! Over the 2 weeks there will be 3 fly days… 1. The Big Mountain 2. Freeride Day and 3. Chinese Downhill action (First to the finish wins!!)

During the down days its all action in and around the Otago / Central Lakes District with activities in place that will keep everybody amused.