Interviews

THE QUESTION – Worst Slam

We decided to get under the skin of an assortment of pro riders by posing one question and seeing how they stack up. This time we asked “What’s the worst slam you ever had?”

Feel free to add your own answers beneath!

Ståle Sandbech

“It might be when I got a concussion in Folgefonna – I did a backside triple and landed 90 degrees and scorped super hard, lost my brains for a few minutes. I also had one in Japan, I didn’t really get hurt but I jumped and tapped this tree branch and hit it too hard and landed on my stomach kinda scorped. In the same moment that I landed the branch flipped my board up and I got a super scorp. It felt like I’d broke my back in half. I guess it was just the vertebrae touching or whatever; it felt super gnarly. I didn’t dare to move at first, I thought I’d broke my back. It felt like my ass was touching the back of my head but I just chilled for one day, had a bunch of ice baths and I was fine.” – Ståle

Roope Tonteri

“The worst injury I’ve had was with my arm in 2013 when I broke it two times in a row, but one of the worst slams I had was last autumn in Stubai when I did front 10 off the toes and didn’t really spot the landing. I caught my toe edge in the snow and hit my head really badly.” – Roope

Will Smith

“I couldn’t really say there has been some shitty ones that weren’t even that bad but if you land wrong you can really get hurt. Probably my slam when I was filming for Hallucinate on this big spaghetti thin double kink. The rail went straight on to a tram line and there wasn’t any snow hardly on the track so you can’t stop either so it was kinda sketchy. Anyway this old woman with a bright orange bag walked out from under the bridge next to the rail as I was getting on the it and I though it was a tram which made me freak out. I ended up catching my toe edge at the end of the flat and fell like 14 maybe 15 stair off the rail to my face and kinda scorped.” – Roope

Nicolas Müller

“It was when I hit a tree branch in Japan. I basically ripped half of my bottom apart…” – Nicolas

Enni Rukajärvi

“Maybe not the worst, but certainly the most stupid one was when I hit a banner on the slopestyle course at the US Open 2013. It was pretty close to the rails and I did a trick on a rail in the practise and kinda landed little bit on the side and rode straight into the Burton banner. I bounced and flipped over out from the course down, around a two-metre drop, kinda head first. Luckily I only got small concussion and a fractured rib.” – Enni

Eero Ettala

Ettala Miller flipping on the same trip he nearly ended himself on. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

“Maybe the slam in Iceland few years back filming for CWG. I tried to do a switch front blunt on a flat rail to drop but ended up catching my edge as soon as I landed on the rail and flew back first to the ground from over four meters. I only knocked the wind out myself and was seeing stars for a bit, so I got really lucky. Seeing that slam now… it makes me think that I could be in the wheelchair right now.” – Eero

Cheryl Maas

“I fell into the gap of the gap jump at X Games once. Seven metres straight down on to my head. I’m so lucky that I only ripped my ligaments and broke a thumb. It could have been much worse – I could have been with the angels.” – Cheryl

Boris Mouton

“I haven’t had that many bad ones, man. I’ve broken bones but I’m thinking for a huge one. I cut my head once in Saas-Fee, after a front seven when I caught my heel edge and slammed so hard. The worst part was that I was saying to my friend on the lift up ‘how can you catch your edge in the landing?’ and then I fucking did it. Little Jesus fucked me up.” – Boris

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