 I'm Valentino Gazzelli, I was born in Canberra and I'm a snowboarder. My earliest memories snowboarding will include riding down the Perisher Front Valley with my family, just having a ball in the sun and the slushy snow at the end of the day. You know I had a fun way of looking at different things, it was pretty daring. Riding three skateboards at one time, he called it triple death. I think my dad realised that I could be a pro snowboarder one day maybe when he was told by other people that were in the Australian snowboard scene that they should take me overseas to start competing. Once I took them overseas I started to realise he'd be a professional snowboarder. 15 years of age. 15 years of age, exactly. My family have been massive support, without them I wouldn't be here. His dad was there, Rick, he was following but they just had this kind of like old school dirtbag flavour. It costs a lot of money to travel in. I sold a few properties along the way. I didn't care, I wouldn't have trade those years for the world. My grandparents had the idea to build a training facility at home so I could spend more time at home to snowboard. If he keeps Valentino in Australia longer and he can train here, instead of going overseas let's build it. It's got to be ridiculous having an airbag in your back garden. It's like having a vert ramp or a mini ramp in your back yard but times a hundred for a snowboarder in Australia. Insane, got to be insane. I miss home a lot. My family, just my dog. But it's all worth it and I'm not... It's not the worst thing, I'm overseas living the dream so it's awesome. Every time I've got my heart right in my throat when riders drop in, there's very few sports that have that level of sustained physical, mental and just outright danger levels. Like the stress and everything for such a short period of time packed into one run. He gets very determined from disappoints. He wants to win everything. What was different from Valentino is he seemed to be focusing on the fundamentals. Big straight airs, mellow, slow stylish spins, good tweaks, good grabs and above all, amplitudes. And it's these fundamentals that make good pipe riders. Going into the Lax Open in 2021 was a little bit frightening for sure. It was my first World Cup so I wasn't sure if I had what it took to match it with the big dogs. I mean he loves that half-party Lax. He feels at home there. The shot for the Lax Open, you know, two things. Pipe's going to be perfect and everyone is going to throw down. I did pretty well in training. From the very first hit to the very bottom was just leagues above everyone else. Six, seven, nine there, Jimmy. And that was incredible to see. Really, really special. That's huge. We're at about 80, it is absolutely huge. I got a really good score so I was super happy. Put my headphones on at the top, blast some Led Zeppelin or Soundgarden or something and just get hyped to go and do my favourite thing. The consequences of getting it wrong in half-pipe are pretty massive. In Sass Faye, when I was training last year in September, I made a little mistake. Decked on my arm and broke it, got surgery and then I think injuries can definitely be blessings in disguise. You don't take it for granted. You can kind of find a new passion for the sport. That was a little bit of a struggle to get through, but I'm back now. Didn't rehab for five weeks and now we're back snowboarding again. Pretty stoked and really excited to ride again. I've missed it. Half-pipe is really the snowboarder's discipline and you have to be a really good snowboarder to be able to ride half-pipe well. Every trick we do is our expression of the way we want to ride. So I'm just looking down the pipe, beating my chest and ready to drop in and go and send it. He could be there for a long time pushing the limits of half-pipe riding but also beyond that I think he could be one of those riders who goes on to make an impact over snowboarding as a whole. I'm super proud of him. He's a smart, intelligent kid. He's very focused on what he's doing. One of the big goals in my life is working one trick, one technique at a time to be a master of my craft. Gonna be someone people look at the same way they look at Kelly Slater or Michael Jordan.