Totally detached - Onefoot backflips 25 years ago!

Onefoot jumps have always been suspicious to me. To fly through the air with only one foot in the binding is completely crazy! What if you mess up the landing? Don't you rip off all your ligaments and blow up your knee? That's a terrifying thought! But somehow Onefooted Airs are also fascinating. A quarter of a century ago they were mega-in.

One of the onefoot pioneers was the Austrian Peter Hauser. 27 years ago (1992), he thus provided for a Snowboard magazine for sensation. That was reason enough at the time to give me this live to look at. They didn't have Facebook back then, so I organized Peter's phone number and arranged to meet him for a photo shoot. At April 1995 I made my way to the small carinthian ski area Koralpe, home turf of Peter Hauser. What I experienced there was to give me the Catches your breath...

Meanwhile Peter Hauser, who sees himself as a "pioneer of the windsurfing and snowboard scene", has given up all his boards. He wanted to experience something new, and so he simply changed the sport from one day to the next. Today, bike expeditions in the wilderness of Africa, North and South America turn the 55-year-old Lavanttal district police commander on more. Or Ironman participations.

Pink with yellow stars - that was Peter Hauser's "signature colour".

At the time when I visited him in Austria in 1995, Peter Hauser was still 31 years old and deputy police chief. His "signature colour" was pink with yellow stars. And so he appeared for the photo shoot in a pink sweatshirt with yellow stars. And black leggings. And a white windsurfing helmet. Not exactly cool clothes in a time when baggy pants were mega-in! One of his snowboard buddies was also there. During a few turns in the Koralpe ski area I quickly got the impression that Peter had a somewhat idiosyncratic riding style. But after a short time we were at "his spot": The Backflip-Kicker!

The Backflip-Kicker

A steep approach track led through a depression to a four meter high quarterpipe, from which Peter wanted to catapult himself vertically out into the air. Bizarrely enough, the landing did not consist of a steep slope, but of a completely flat plateau, which was also rock hard! To "loosen up" the whole thing a bit, Peter and his buddy crushed this rock-hard snow with a shovel to a sea of ice chunks. It was really crazy! Perfect for shooting your knees and tearing off all your ligaments when landing!
Peter left that cold, and so he started to jump. A few Rocket Air backflips to warm up... Wait! Rocket air backflips? Those are two completely opposite movements. Not for Peter. He even double-handed the rocket air, pulled the board nose up to his sternum. Backflips! I never understood how he did it until today.

Rocket Air Backflip: While Peter throws himself backwards with his body, he leans forward and pulls the board nose up to his chest. Wtf?!?

Then the jumps I had been waiting for: Peter shoots down the hard approach, towards the four meter high quarterpipe. With the back foot standing in the open binding. Then he catapults himself into the air, five meters high. Headfirst. Double-handed Rocket Air, with one foot stretched out to the side! Touchdown! On the board! Into a sea of rock-hard lumps of snow from a height of five meters! Very cool Peter gets out of his binding and trudges up the approach slope again. As if this was the most normal thing in the world. With the camera still in place, I struggle to get my bearings. Not a single one of his tapes is torn, he hasn't even hurt himself. Then Peter proves that he really masters this madness: He does one onefoot backflip after the other, all landed cleanly!

Onefooted Backflip

Then, to top it off, Peter shows me nor his double backflip, with both legs firmly in the binding. Also the was already spectacular at the time. The only thing he still wants to do is the triple backflip ...because he hasn't mastered it yet...

That was 1995. A quarter of a century ago!