Mt Hutt rider impresses at Junior World Champs Slopestyle event

Mt Hutt Sponsored Athlete and Christchurch local Ben Comber (20) had the best day of his snowboarding career to date as he placed fifth in the Slopestyle event at the 2010 FIS Snowboard & Freestyle Junior World Championships at Snow Park NZ on Saturday (21 Aug).

Comber was the only New Zealand rider to make it into the finals, consisting of 12 competitors.

This is the first time Slopestyle has been recognised as part of the International event.

In the early rounds Comber threw down a seriously impressive switch backside nine off the seventy foot kicker, which earned him the highest qualifying run of the day.

Each rider was given two runs in the final and once again Ben landed the highest scores for the first run.

On the second attempt Ben wasn’t so fortunate and a couple of other riders jumped in front, giving Ben fifth place in the Slopestyle event.

“It went really, really, really good!!” says Comber, clearly stoked with his efforts in the Junior World Champs.

This is a huge achievement for Ben who is also an accomplished wakeboarder in the Summer time and in the middle of working towards a degree in Architectural Studies at CPIT.

Mt Hutt Ski Area Manager, David Wilson is stoked with Combers performance. “Ben is such a cool guy. He provides a lot of inspiration to the young guys at Hutt and has worked hard to get where he is today.”

“We picked up Ben in 2009 as a sponsored rider as he had the right mix of determination, results and character that we look for in our team” said Mr Wilson.

For now, Comber is back in Christchurch for a couple of days before heading back down to Wanaka for the Big Air event on the 31st of August, then its back to Mt Hutt for some training in the T.R.I.C park with his mates.

Ben would like to give a big thank you to his sponsors Cheapskates, Burton, and Mt Hutt for all their support this season.