Slopestyle and halfpipe at the Laax Open: Snowboard talent Hasler opts for the mammoth program

class=”sc-cffd1e67-0 iQNQmc”>

If Jonas Hasler (17) went alpine skiing, his name would probably be in every newspaper today. Because on Friday he achieved his first World Cup points – but not in alpine skiing, but in slopestyle, on the snowboard at the Laax Open. “Everyone says it’s super good. But I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t make it to the semi-finals,” he says with a grin on his face. The Thurgau teenager also feels at ease in the largest pipe in the world – he proves this a little later when he came out on top Swiss in the halfpipe narrowly missed the final with a 14th place.

With his double starts, Hasler is an absolute exotic. Only the Australian prodigy Valentino Guseli (18) also participates in halfpipe and slopestyle. There were people who discouraged Swiss snowboarding talent from practicing both disciplines. “One thing alone is difficult enough, they thought. But what I learn in the halfpipe also helps me in slopestyle and vice versa,” Jonas Hasler explains.

If you want to be cool, you have to be a boarder

The fact that the multi-talented from Thurgau is on the board at all was not a problem for a long time. Until he was seven, he wanted to become a professional with skis on his feet. In Laax GR, where his parents own a holiday apartment, he looked up to his role model, freeskier Andri Ragettli (25). “But then someone in the trampoline hall said to me: ‘Jonas, if you go skiing, you will never find a girlfriend! Boarders are much cooler.” Little Jonas was deeply impressed by this at the time – and drew the consequences. From that moment on he raced through the Laax snow park with one instead of two boards.

Much to the delight of his parents, Patrik and Sabine Wehr-Hasler, who both participated in the Olympic Games on board. Before Jonas was accepted into the Swiss Snowboard team, they were his coaches.

Energy for two

And while Jonas is now one of the coolest (though he counters that freeskiers are just as cool), he doesn’t have a girlfriend. “No time,” he says. That is understandable. Because participating in two disciplines also means twice as many training sessions and twice as much running on the day of the race.

“I’m young, I have the energy for it. I can understand if the older boys don’t feel like it anymore,” explains Hasler, who now lives in Laax. To do this, he forgoes the wild lifestyle that some in the scene like to pursue. “Parties and alcohol mean nothing to me. I’d rather enjoy it on the mountain until the end.”

Source : Blick