Jindabyne’s Russell Henshaw again showed his domination of the world freestyle competition when he won the 2009 London Freeze this month.
Russell pulled a perfect and massive Double Cork 1260°.
The event was run in front of the impressive towers of the Battersea Power Station and fascinated more than 10,000 spectators.
Alongside international music acts the world’s skiing stars put on a great performance. On Friday evening the local heroes started the action, as the complete English and Scottish elite started in the “Battle of Britain”.
The winner of the prestigious duel was Paddy Graham, who kept his fellow competitors in check with a clean Double Cork 1080°.
The highlight of the event from an international point of view was the Freeski Big Air on Sunday.
The competition with its first class list of riders started dramatically with strong rain and stormy gusts which made the snow melt away from the in-run and landing. Only because of the strong endeavor of the shape-crew and with some delay the contest was able to take place. But this had no negative impact to the incredible skiing level shown by the riders.
In the dramatic finals of the top eight skiers, Australian Russ Henshaw won with unbelievable 99 of 100 possible points on the very last run of the whole event. His perfect Double Mute Grab in an impeccable and huge Double Cork 1260° convinced the judges even more than the “True Nose Poke” of the second place American Bobby Brown who had done the same trick. Andreas Håtveit from Norway completed the podium with his third place.
Russ Henshaw was overjoyed with his triumph.
“At first I didn’t want to start,” explains the poster child of the Marker Völkl Freeski-Team after the prize giving.
At some point there was so little snow left on the ramp that it looked like a waterramp. But after a few hits the jumps even felt quite comfortable even with the plastic snow in-run. It is amazing to win with such a score under such riding conditions!”
The London Freeze 2009 just made history as a remarkable event and Russ Henshaw‘s winning jump as a milestone in freeski progression.
The British press described Russell last week as
“He is one of the coolest young Freeski-Stars, and this has to be taken literally.”
“He is a winter kid. For him there is only one answer to the question what he is doing in summer: „I ski! Because it is winter here in Australia.”
Besides his really impressive range of good contest results – he himself describes the success at the Jon Olsson Invitational 2009 as his career highlight – Russ is also riding for Matchstick Productions, the leading ski video production company over the last years. In their newest production In Deep Russ already has a feature section at the young age of 19! And this is no surprise at all, as he either sticks a trick or works on it until he lands it everytime. This is daily business to Russ, working on his skills, adding the perfection that the other pro skiers don’t have. After all, he has the time to improve the details, as Russ enjoys the winter for almost 365 days per year, either somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere or at his home spot in Thredbo, Australia.”
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