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 that time, when I visited him in Austria in 1995, Peter Hauser was still 31 years old and vice chief of police. His "signature color" was pink with yellow stars. And so he showed up for the photo shoot in a pink sweatshirt with yellow stars. And black leggings. Plus a white windsurf helmet. Not exactly cool clothes in a time when baggy pants were mega-in! With him was one of his snowboard buddies. During a few turns in the Koralpe ski area, I quickly got the impression that Peter had a somewhat idiosyncratic riding style. After a short time, however, we were at "his spot": the backflip kicker!

The Backflip-Kicker

A steep approach track led through a hollow to a four-meter-high quarter pipe, from which Peter wanted to catapult himself vertically out into the air. Strangely enough, the landing did not consist of a steep slope, but of a completely flat plateau, which was also rock hard! To "lighten up" the whole thing, Peter and his buddy crushed this rock-hard snow with a shovel into a sea of ice chunks. That was really the purest madness! Perfectly suited to shoot his knees on landing and tear off all the ligaments!
Peter didn't care, so he started jumping. A few Rocket Air Backflips to warm up... Wait! Rocket Air Backflips? Those are two completely opposite movements! Not for Peter. He even did the Rocket Air double-handed, the board nose pulled up to the sternum. During the backflip! I still don't understand how he did that.

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'd been waiting for: Peter shoots down the tough approach to the four-meter-high quarter pipe. Standing with his back foot 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! Landed! On the board! From a height of five meters into the flat, into a sea of rock-hard snow! Very cool Peter gets out of his binding and trudges back up the approach slope. As if this was the most normal thing in the world. Camera still at the ready, I struggle to keep my composure. Not a single one of his ligaments is torn, he hasn't even hurt himself. Then Peter proves that he really masters this madness: One Onefoot Backflip after the other he makes, 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!