Europe’s longest established winter snowsports festival, The BRITS, went down last week in Laax with some of the sickest riding and après shenanigans in the event's 20 year history as it celebrated its milestone birthday in style. It was a busy week where record breaking spins were spun, new heights reached, stars of the future found and a plethora of parties as debauched as ever!

Celebrating 20 years of snowsporting history, organisers and sponsors upped the ante to guarantee The BRITS 2009 was an absolute classic! Playing host to the prestigious British Snowboard and Freeski Championships, which witnessed kids, rookies, pros and Olympians, including Lesley McKenna, X Games Gold Medallist Jenny Jones, Ben Kilner, Jaime Nicholls, James Woods and Katie Summerhayes, all throwing down some of the highest standard of riding witnessed at the BRITS to date. The Championship action came courtesy of the Trespass Snowboardcross/Skiercross, Quiksilver Big Air, Animal Slopestyle and SNO!zone Halfpipe. For full daily competition event reports, results and images please check out the www.brits09.com website.

The all-new Après Session Arena with its array of entertainment and fully stocked bar proved unsurprisingly popular and kept the masses entertained after a sunny days shredding on the hill. Running alongside the live DJ and acoustic sets from the likes of hot new prospect Ben Howard, revellers thronged outside the Crap Bar for a raft of extracurricular festivities which included the Nike 6.0 Highest Ollie Challenge, in which Ben Kilner set a new British record of 1 metre (or 39” in old money) which secured him his 2nd of three wins during the week! 2009 also saw the return of the much loved Red Bull Homerun, in which a mix of 210 ‘pumped’ skiers and snowboarders jostled for a space on the front row at the start with all entrants determined to win the highly charged en masse Chinese downhill race.

The Cushe Air Bag was pounded all week long with a never-ending stream of eager freestylers greeted with a reassuringly Cushe landing, while the SUSO drinks team were at the heart of the Après Arena with their unique SUSO Slopeside Cinema to screen the greatest 20 film sections of all time as voted for by the public. Those making the final countdown and reaching the hall of fame were:

Freeski

1. Seth Johnson, “SM3, The Front Line”
2. 2. C R Johnson, “SM3, The Front Line”
3. Simon Dumont, “Claim”
4. Sammy Carlson, “Reasons”

Snowboarding

1. Johan Olofsson, “Totally Board 5”
2. Romain De Marchi, “Vivid”
3. Travis Rice, “Pop”
4. Terje Haakonsen, “New Way of Thinking”