2009: Report | Results | Gallery | Video

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Just too much snow...
It was against the odds that the final Workers Challenge event of 2009 took place on Wednesday – phenomenal levels of fresh snow since the weekend meant that it had been impossible to build the skier/boarder X course, despite every effort being made right up to 8am on the morning of the event. The snow simply wasn’t stable enough, so the creative Plan B was rolled into action – timed runs and heats on a skier/boarder parallel slalom with low triangular boardercross gates.

Competitors had two timed runs and the four fastest combined times in each category went through to the knock-out heats. With the conditions changing on every race – one minute it was snowing, the next foggy, the next clear – it was testing times for the competitors, but the race marshals from Precision Ski helped keep in great nick the course Sarah and Gerard Bonneville had specially created for us.

The glittering lights of TV
We’d all taken extra care of our appearance that morning as a camera crew from the BBC was planning to film the event for its The Hills style real-life drama following season workers (look out for it on BBC2 in October). After much negotiating with pisteurs and skidoo drivers they and all their bags and bags of kit arrived at the Stade and we were treated to a close up behind the scenes glimpse of TV. It’s all glamour, let us assure you.

MCing the event was Radio Will from Radio Val, lucidly keeping us all informed on what was actually going on in our revised and revamped Crystal Skier/Boarder X.
The racing was neck and neck on the parallel course with some impressively fast times set, and some spectacularly outlandish wipeouts. Oscar Balfour-Paul and Hari Martin must be particularly proud of their cartwheels, considering they’re two of the BBC stars, so every second of each tumble was caught on camera.

Battling to the wire
The big battle of the day was between Craig Conkie and Martin Jeffers, long time Workers Challenge veterans, best of friends and bitter rivals. One won their first heat, the other the second, but eventually Martin pulled a vital few milliseconds out of the bag to clinch the male skier title.

Roddy Clarke, a director from Pro Snowboarding school, rode away with the male snowboard title, but not without some fierce competition from Sam Baldwin. Rachel Kerr from the Petit Danois skied a tight line to take the female skier title from the Mountain Echo’s Courtney Christian, while Scott Dunn’s Kate Daniel was the only female boarder to enter, so was automatically guaranteed a prize. See, it pays to enter these things!

Party time!
Back in the BBC spotlight at the prizegiving later at the Foret bar, Radio Will entertained us, Natives Emma spoilt the winners with bags of fabulous prizes, and George and his bar staff fed and watered us to saturation point. To top off the cracking day, our favourite Alpine rockers Mullit played a storming set then it was all off to Dick's for a drum and bass barnstormer courtesy of Roni Size which, thanks to Dicks Tea Bar, our winners were given free VIP entry to.

All this couldn’t have been possible without help and support from Val d'Isere, Stade Bonneville, Radio Will from Radio Val d'Isere, Race Marshals from Precision Ski Ross and Henry, PowderMonday, George at the Foret bar and Jonny at Dicks Tea Bar.

Everyone's a winner
PLUS we’d like to extend a massive thank you to our sponsors for support and prizes: Crystal, clothing (GONEboarding, Greeneye and Natives), helmets (SH+), eyewear (Ryders), and goody bags from Ski Club of Great Britain, flights from Ryanair, hats from Chaos and gloves from Swany, tickets to the Altitude Festival 2009 and drinks from Extreme Drinks, DVDs (Ride Freesports and Warren Smith Ski Accademy) board games from Schuss. Plus from our local sponsors Precision Ski, Fat Face and Dicks Tea Bar.