 Hello and welcome. My name is Tim Ward here, excitedly to bring you coverage of the Lax Open 2021 half-hype finals. And of course we sat down the riders to find out exactly how they're feeling ahead of this season opener. I couldn't think of a better place to start out this year. I mean, you know, Lax is always a place I love to come and ride personally and the pipe is always really great for training as well as competition. This is going to be for us our first event of the year. Super stoked that the event is happening. The conditions are amazing and they are doing actually a great job. It's the best pipe in the world, the biggest one. It's really fun to ride. And it's an amazing event. It's at home and for sure every Swiss guy, it's like a dream to be successful here. The sick thing about riding the pipe at night is it doesn't matter if it's snowing because you can still see everything and the pipe is so fast, man, it's crazy. So you can just go as big as possible. It would be nice to come over the wind here this week. Be ready for a battle, which it's going to be, which it always has been. So I'm looking forward to it. Let's talk about Chloe Kim. She's had a bit of time off, but she's back with the bank. She's qualified in first place. We actually caught up with Chloe just before the competition and we asked her how it was to be back competing. I had so many questions and I just didn't know like, you know, if I'd still be able to compete under the pressure and stuff. But yeah, really glad I was able to land in a contest. It's been almost two years. So yeah, I'm stoked. She is stoked. 94 points coming in for her first contest in two years off. I don't really care about winning or losing. It's more just, I just want to put something down and I'll be happy. The biggest inspiration for me is music. I put my headphones on at the top, blast some lead zeppelin or sound garden or something and just get hyped to go and do my favourite thing. I'm so excited to see how he handles the pressure of the finals here. I'm so happy. So perfect here. The pipe's the best in the world and comp or no comp. Sunny or snowing, it's always perfect shape, you know, so good. Arx, the home of European freestyle snowboarding right here. The super pipe in all of its glory. Arguably the best in the world. The women will be taking to the halfpipe here. Two runs with the best run counts. Haruna Matsumoto will be first to drop and kick things off here in Larx with a huge tailbone. All eyes go back to the top for Quiro Castellet, the defending champion here in Larx. Can it be first again in 2021? Oh no, it is not to be for Quiro Castellet. It probably was a bit rational, you know, we've held the excitement of the contest and yeah, and I couldn't quite make it back into the pipe. All eyes to the top of the pipe as the best female halfpipe snowboarder of all time is dropping in. She's gone for it. Frontside 10. She knows now she's got that 1080 in there. She's got to hold it on. Oh, frontside 900 into a McTwist. Oh my goodness. That's it. It's game over for everybody else. It's really like surreal to be back. I completely forgot what it's like to compete again and being in that situation sucks because like, got to land the last run. I was like so nervous, but I'm so happy I was able to do it. Next up, we have the men's halfpipe. So here's your start list for the men's halfpipe finals. Now, then, hold your breath, people. You're defending champion here at the Lax Open. A man who has constantly been able to push the limits. Scotty James, here we go. 180's in. So now he's riding switch. Switch backside. 1260. Look how smooth it is. The tricks are held so beautifully. Backside 1260. Oh my goodness. Scotty James. He's got his boxing gloves back on. You do it. Can he finally get it done here? Huge front, frontside 1440. Into switch 1260. Switch backside. What a run. He gets the frontside 1260 at the end. What a run that is. He takes down Scotty James with an incredible run. It's really me against myself and you know those guys push me so much all the time and I'm really looking forward now to putting in the work and he's a fantastic rider and he keeps pushing me so he's definitely a rival but there's a lot of rivals in the field now. Everyone's riding so well. I'm happy next to cap 12 and cap 1080 and the combo is my first time in life. I'm happy. You know I'm literally walking away with this with a grin because you know I know what I can do and I get time to put in some hard work and I'll be back where I want to be in a matter of time.