Team Trouble is a team contest taking place in Laax, somewhere deep in the mountains of Switzerland. Two years ago, me and Steve Forstner decided to go check out that event that looked pretty fun and exists for more than 10 years. We weren’t disappointed. We recorded ourselves in the car on the way back and that was our article. Some people liked it, some didn’t, so we decided to do the same this time again, adding our friend Paul Labadie in the mix. We even brought big neon stickers to spice up the weekend.
Paul Labadie is a French independent video maker that recently made the Tom the cooler series for Vans, runs Ashes griptape company and is the initiator of the Gnarathon in Vienna where he lives.
Steve Forstner is an Austrian former pro skateboarder who’s now doing marketing for NHS in Europe (Indy, Santa Cruz, OJ, etc.)
Intro and captions by Tura
Tura: How’s the hangover?
Steve: I don’t have one at all.
Paul: Average. Mellow hangover. Hey you were giving me shit for having alcohol theme videos and that’s your first question! You wanna talk about drinking! Do you have a drinking problem Tura?
Tura: Ha ha ha! What about Tom the cooler, he’s not allowed to come to events anymore?
Paul: He was not invited.
Steve: Tom is retired!
Paul: They had Yeti as a sponsor, and Tom is not a Yeti. Tom is Tom. Maybe there was a bit of conflict of interest, or maybe we just gotta get Yeti on the Tom program. Yeti, if you read this, hit me up on Instagram!
Steve: We need more corporate sponsors in our life.
Tura: Do we?
Steve: That’s the question, I don’t know!
Tura: Anyways, it’s interesting how… How messy that event is… and how…
Steve: What do you mean “messy”?
Paul: The contest? The event?
Tura: Not messy but…
Paul: It’s organised chaos.
Tura: Yeah, It’s not a mess, it’s organised chaos.
Steve: It always is, no? How do you actually organize a skate contest for a bunch of drunk idiots running around? You have to let a certain amount of chaos rule it.
Tura: True… What’s for sure is I think we did a good sticker job. It’s funny the girls from Dolores mag had the same idea. [Editor’s note: these stickers actually came from Zurich’s Serge Bertschy]
Steve: Really?
Tura: They were actually printing those little stripes.
Paul: What was the message on them?
Tura: Anything, but it’s just that the impact was lower because it was so small.
Paul: And black and white. We brought the color!
Tura: It’s funny it was the same idea.
Steve: I didn’t even notice. That’s how good we were and how good our stickers were!
Paul & Tura: Ha ha ha!
Steve: Yeah but it always shows: big and flashy, it works!
Tura: It’s just so funny how I decided to print those ONE MORE stickers in big for Cedi (MC) and it was actually fitting exactly the back of the plate the judges had.
Steve: They would have needed a NO MORE too!
Tura: And I think the judges liked it. ‘Cause usually you can not hear them during the runs and that gave them a voice.
Steve: Oli Buergin was definitely stoked on them.
Tura: And I gave Chloé Bernard the TWO MORE one!
Steve & Paul: Ha ha ha!
Tura: It’s funny how everyone could relate to those stickers. Obviously the best one was on Jimmy Wilkins. It’s a shame he got hurt.
Steve: That was definitely the saddest moment of the contest. “Jimmy’s out! Nooooo!” Then half of the people wanted to go home!
Tura: Ha ha! But that’s when you realize how good Shea Donovan is.
Steve: Oh the other guy? The shadow of Jimmy?
Tura: Yeah we could at least witness how good he can be too. Also Zach Miller! I didn’t know the guy.
Steve: True.
Tura: He definitely has a bit of his father’s style. Always good to have.
Paul: It’s another way of being in the shadow of someone. An even more complicated one. Although I was talking to Hugo Westrelin on the platform and I told him “That’s Zach Miller, Chris Miller’s son, you know?” And he was like “Who’s that?”
Steve: Anybody under 30 probably doesn’t know. Pretty sure!
Paul: And Hugo was like “Maybe I should look it up!”
Steve: They all just know Tony Hawk, that’s it! I always think it’s funny that the most famous skateboarder in the whole world has such a shitty style…
Paul: Tony? Definitely, but…
Steve: Our main dude doesn’t have a great style!
Paul: No, I think it’s actually a good thing. Who cares in the end? It’s nice when somebody has a nice style but what matters is like, having fun on a skateboard, right? Trying stuff, slamming…
Steve: I like Tony Hawk, he’s cool, he’s a nice guy, but we were never like “let’s watch a Tony Hawk part!”
Paul: Ha ha ha! You think Tony will read this?
Steve: Tony, if you’re reading this, sorry!
Paul: We love you!
Steve: When I’d watch the Birdhouse video, I’d always fast forward his part!
Tura: You never know, Alan and Cedi could probably manage to have Tony Hawk coming, just like he shows up at the Vert Attack in Malmö without telling anyone.
Paul: But at the Vert Attack, there’s a lot of big names.
Steve: it would be funny if he’d show up at Laax without being invited, and they wouldn’t give him a wristband…
Tura: But I think it would turn the whole event into something else.
Paul: Why?
Tura: Big media… I don’t know. Actually at Vert Attack, it doesn’t happen.
Steve: That’s why it’s best no one should know that he’s coming.
Tura: Talking about legends, Glifberg killed it.
Steve: He’s still going for it, at 52. Not bad!
Paul: That doesn’t make me feel good!
Tura & Steve: Ha ha ha!
Paul: Being quite younger and nowhere near this level of fitness… What I really like about him, is that he’s not doing old man’s tricks. He’s still going for complicated switch stuff that’s really risky!
Tura: Switch shove it nose slides…
Paul: I mean it’s his tricks that he used to do, but still…
Steve: Yeah he could just fly around and do a few madonnas.
Paul: Exactly, and he can do that too really good, but no, he wants that switch backside flip!
Tura: And those tail smashes he does…
Steve: I was kind of disappointed, he didn’t do a kickflip back lip. He nearly always does those. But it’s cool to see a vert session again, I have to say.
Tura & Paul: Yeah.
Steve: Even if Jimmy wasn’t part of it.
Tura: Knowing that he was here was almost enough!
Steve: It’s always funny how vert is always good live, on video it’s never really… You know? At least for me. When you’re standing on the ramp you’re like: “Yeah, this is sick!”
Tura: What’s your highlight of these 3 days?
Paul: Snowboarding! Ha ha! Getting a free ski pass was such a highlight! Props to Cedi for that!
Tura: Cedi is the man!
Steve: I’d say he’s the best speaker. ‘Cause most of the times I start to hate the speakers!
Tura: And the DJ was great too!
Paul: This DJ is amazing. So on point. Also there was really a lot of thought put into the songs. He chose for each team and for each session different music, like during the love seat session he put like love songs, soul and R&B… My favorite moment is when he played Jul for the Marseille team. Man, that brought such a good vibe, everybody was dancing! Not that I’m a Jul fan but at that moment it was like woah! And I thought that they had requested it but no!
Steve: I have to say, that Marseille team, and you know I’m not the biggest fan of Marseille in general, team was full class, and was the only team that had a girl…
Tura: and a coach!
Paul: and a football and 2 brothers!
Steve: Yeah, but with the English you never know, they can be second degree brothers!
Tura & Paul: Ha ha ha!
Steve: That’s my highlight, just seeing the English people, they’re just fucking amazing, and you can see them from miles away!
Paul: They definitely dominated the event. There was maybe too many English people!
Tura: We need more Belgians!
Paul: There was some fucking amazing Belgians. I had seen a part of this Belgian guy, Matteo Vanderputte, the guy who tried the backside wall bash and to ollie back in.
Tura: Wait…
Steve: He had long dark hair, skating with Hugo Westrelin, he rips!
Tura: Oh yeah, grey sweater, backside 360 in the deep end?
Paul: Yeah, exactly, that’s him. Every time he dropped in, it would end with an insane slam! And he was like nothing happened…
Tura: There was another Mechelen guy, who was really good too, but more of a streeter’s style…
Paul: Shirt sleeve over long sleeve?
Tura: Yes!
Paul: That’s… Fuck, what’s his name? His Instagram is like SPLIFF something… Also a Van Der something I think!
Tura: Anyway, he was amazing and it was cool to see new faces!
Paul: It says Pieter de Clus Van Lierde on Instagram.
Tura: What else should we talk about?
Paul: That girl from Marseille, what’s her name again?
Tura: Emilie Alexandre. I heard her say she’s 19.
Steve: She definitely ripped.
Tura: But also the other girls, it’s funny how much effort they put into baking those pies for real!
Steve: Yeah, I thought they were just gonna have some weird fake thing!
Paul: All of the teams made a big effort having a concept and even like scenarios…
Tura: And you missed the guy getting a tattoo in the run!
Paul: Yeah, I wish I’d seen that!
Steve: It’s crazy because Oli (Buergin) told me how to grade the runs: the maximum is 100 points, 20 points for the creativity and outfit and things you do. So if you don’t put any effort into that, you lose a lot of points, which is cool!
Paul: Oh, ok.
Tura: Best outfit was the 110 team. Really professional, clean…
Steve: That was a good outfit, yeah. But I liked the gay cowboys and how they dropped the guy when they tail dropped in holding him!
Tura: Sleeveless shirts and cowboy hats, really cool! Where else do you see such creativity in a competition? I would love to hear the discussions the teams have pre-run… Did you see the other French team with Robin Bolian? In the middle of the run, one of them took out a paper he had in his pocket just to see “ok what’s next on the list?”, ha ha, that was so good! It’s crazy how it’s so much, like, you don’t know what to expect and then you have this one guy with a pigeon head showing up with a wooden Nokia phone outfit! They skated it a bit and then the outfit stayed there for half a day…
Paul: He put it in some place where nobody touched it, then somewhere else, but they did use the Nokia box in the finals.
Tura: The chain thing was also crazy.
Steve: I was a bit worried about the chain thing!
Paul: Yeah it looked like he had wrapped it around his neck!
Steve: Exactly! “Oh that’s not what you want!”
Tura: I think it’s the first time that people bring stuff into the bowl, usually they get creative with what they have, but now they bring their own stuff which is funny because like, anywhere else it would be totally forbidden. And here it’s like “Fine! Let’s do this!”
Steve: That’s why I love skateboarding. It’s the only sport where you have like, technically, professionals, and they go for a hopeless cause, you know? They know they will probably not land the trick, and they’re just willing to eat shit… No other sport with that exist, really…
Tura: Especially with doubles or triples or quadruples! Sometimes they slam and stay on the ground for 2 minutes, and then get up and be like “All good, let’s try again!” And he just fell from 3 meters high on his face!
Steve: “Now I need more attention, I’ll try this thing again!”
Paul: I seriously don’t know how they get back up from these slams.
Steve: Did you see that one hang up on the little wall on the side?
Tura: From the Belgian guy we were just talking about?
Steve: Yeah, for that hang up, you would have had to call an ambulance for me! I would have had so many things shattered inside my body! And he was just like “Allright, I’m ok, going for more!” Not bad!
Tura: Even if it was kind of a small quarter pipe, he went all the way back to the flat…
Steve: He did not see it coming.
Tura: And then you see Martino (Cattaneo) doing this on purpose!
Steve: Yeah, he was doing one footed hang ups and shove it hang ups, whatever…
Tura: These Swiss guys have something…
Steve: I was surprised that Schianta (Lepori) and him didn’t have a team.
Paul: I think they were not planning on competing, Martino ended up jumping in some team but he told me he wanted to be there because he knew the vert ramp was good and wanted to skate that.
Steve: Fair enough.
Tura: It’s not even a real competition… and there’s not even that much money to win!
Paul: Yeah, but you can see on some of them faces that still, they really want to perform! No? Like Rune Glifberg. I don’t know the guy at all, but you see him and you’re like “He’s a competitor”;
Tura: I didn’t have that feeling.
Paul: Maybe not in a competitive way, he just wants to do good… For himself, probably.
Steve: I think if he didn’t land his tricks he’d be really bummed.
Tura: How cool was the switch flip-switch heel thing?
Steve: That was good, yeah. I like how Rune told me “Oh I never do this on small transitions like this, I only do it on vert!” So funny, it should have been the other way around, doing it on small things and taking it to vert!
Tura: He did a nice one on the vert ramp.
Paul: Yeah, and this guy… Who’s the guy who did the fakie varial heel thing and everybody was tripping?
Tura: That’s Shea Donovan.
Paul: Ok, that’s him!
Steve: That one was sick!
Tura: The way it sticked back to his feet…
Paul: I saw it with my own eyes and my first thought was “That looks like a AI video”.
Steve: Maybe they’ll use AI for ideas next year, using ChatGPT!
Tura: What else needs to be mentioned?
Steve: That Stuart Smith is one of the coolest people on earth.
Tura: They did a pretty good job with Dave (Morgan) on the microphone-instagram thing. It was just spontaneous, not really thought through, just fun. Using the standards of classic sports do make it fun.
Steve: Yeah, that worked out, it’s true. I’m wondering if they regretted not having the live feed like they always had in the past.
Paul: The livestream? Jon (Wolf) was telling me this morning that the livestream cost so much money, and in the end you don’t have that many people watching it.
Steve: So they probably won’t regret doing it differently. Save the money.
Paul: Especially for this type of event, you have to be there to feel it. And the fact that’s it’s intimate, there’s not too many people, I think there’s more people that attend the event are participants than audience, maybe. Everybody is part of it, everybody has a role, and that creates the connection between everyone. It’s always nice to be part of something like that, and that’s not gonna reflect on TV…
Tura: Also, they invite people, they know who’s gonna fit with everyone.
Steve: Yeah, I talked to Alan (Maag) when he was trying to find riders and teams, suggesting people I know that I could contact for him, and there was definitely some people where he was like “Oh no, we had him once and we don’t want to invite him again”, stuff like that. You know other contests, lots of the time it’s like “Bring people, we need people!”, super desperate… Unlike here, you choose who’s coming and it shows that it works, bringing the right people with the good vibe.
Tura: We missed Sam Beckett too. He just had a baby, he had to be mentioned in there.
Steve: Definitely missed.
Tura: People told me the article we did the first time, they took it seriously, like first degree.
Steve: Like they always do!
Tura: It’s funny how they thought it was pure shit talking. We’ll see if they take it the same way here.
Steve: It will always offend someone regardless of what we do or say.
Tura: Cedi told me the first time he read it he was like “What the fuck is this shit?” I didn’t know him back then. And then he read it a second time and he was like “This is actually funny!” We’ll see what feedback we get from this… It’s also funny how everyone thinks I’m always angry…
Paul: But they keep inviting you, so…
Tura: I have this image of the grumpy guy, but it’s just because I have these bad headaches all the time! And I don’t even drink! But I have to say I enjoy that image I have, and talking shit is part of the game.
Steve: That’s pretty much why I came!
RESULTS
Vert MVP: Rune Glifberg
Bowl MVP: Robin Bolian
Pole dance session: Rio Obyrne
Loveseat jam: Alex Hallford
Off the wall session: Robin Bolian
Deep end jam: Rio Obyrne
Double session: Jason Lijnzaat & Toon Dierckx
Team Trouble winners
1 Pocket Fluff: Brendan Watson, Sox, Rio Obyrne, Jordan Lightowler (+ Theyge as Assassin)
2 One Ten: Alex hallford, Jordan Thackeray, Ewen Bower, Alfie Mills
3 Fuck shit up: Jason Lijnzaat, Toon Dierckx, Bjorn Lillesoe, Omar Zoref
4 Fondue mélange: Ramon Notz, Cedric Oosterhoff, Pete Murphy, Adriano Alves (+ Lenny Koller as pigeon)
More info: teamtroublelaax.com, and TT’s Instagram HERE. Special thanks to Cedric Romanens & Alan Maag.