Elias Elhardt emerges triumphant at Relentless Big Air Stuttgart
The German snowboarding sensation Elias Elhardt claimed top honours in the super-final of the 5Star Relentless Big Air Stuttgart presented by Quiksilver that went down at Stuttgart’s , Germany, on Saturday, December 17.
France’s Victor De Le Rue finished in runner-up place, while the current Swatch Ticket to Ride (TTR) Big Air World Tour leader Roope Tonteri from Finland finished in third place to round out the podium.
Making its debut as a 4Star event at the beginning of this year, Relentless Big Air Stuttgart returned for its second edition with an upgraded status of 5Star TTR event this December. With 850 TTR Ranking points on offer, along with the prize purse set to
$50,000 this time, 32 extremely talented riders from around the world showed up at the event to compete for the coveted TTR points and earning a place at the 2012 World Championships schedule to go down in Oslo, Norway, in February.
With a big-air jump and a stair-case obstacle complete with rails and slide-bars making up the setting for the contest, the riders had their work cut out for them as they tried to impress the judges with their style and technical run.
While a number of impressive runs were landed, it was the local favourite Elias Elhardt who ended up stealing the show. Pulling off a Front-side 360 Stale-fish – Front-side Board-slide during his style run and a Front-side 900 Melon – 270 Front-side Board-slide
on his technical run, the German rider earned the highest combined score to walk away with the win.
Talking to a reporter after the super-final, Elhardt said, “It's obviously super cool to win in your home country, the crowd went wild. It's both the first and last contest for me this season, as I will concentrate on filming. Therefore it couldn't have
been a better day.”
With his first-place finish at Relentless Big Air Stuttgart, Elhardt moved to 17th place in the TTR Big Air World Tour Rankings with 283.33 points. The Frenchman De Le Rue moved to 19th place with 266.98 points. Despite finishing third at the
latest big-air competition, the 19-year-old Tonteri still has a solid lead in the TTR Big Air World Tour Rankings with 724.86 points.
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