One must-see snow event this summer is Taravana organised on the glacier of Les 2 Alpes.

The organisers of the fourth and latest Taravana Freestyle event decided to really go to town on it this year, firstly by moving the initial mid-April date to hold the event in the summer on the glacier of Les 2 Alpes.

Organised in honour of Gary Tamatoa Zebrowski, a talented snowboarder (6th in the last Winter Olympics) born in Raïatea and representative of Les 2 Alpes, the event certainly lived up to its expectations with an impeccably high-quality snowpark and a mix of contests for pros and amateurs, kids and even photographers.

To add a little ambience, a whole host of Tahitian men and sublime Tahitian women joined the party. There was a line-up of French freestylers from the skiing and snowboard scene as well as a few high-ranking European riders and an unforgettable prize-giving which served as the cherry on the cake with Air Tahiti Nui airline tickets to join Gary in Polynesia.

While the half-pipe event bore the brunt of the poor summer weather conditions the first two days on the slopestyle was blessed by a blue sky and radiant sun enabling the riders to make full use of the snowpark's modules. Organised in the form of jam sessions, the format of the contest allowed everyone to express themselves and choose their own line, so you could say that it went every which way.

In the beginning there appeared to be far more skiers than snowboarders, but the snowboarder clan were far from having just a token role.

Julien Bourguignon was in fine fettle and showed particular mastery of the hip with Cab 540s grabbed in every way imaginable.

David Livet could not keep still and linked his panel of tricks on the kickers, not wanting to leave with the coconut medal.

Bruno Rivoire came to claim his place in the plane and did the biggest fly on the big air landing at the bottom of the board on landing.

Mathieu Crépel, who showed the greatest motivation and the best chance of a victory before the contest compromised his chances of going to Tahiti by injuring himself on the big kicker&hellip on a 720&hellip with skis on!

After linking runs with his deck – something only he knows how to do - he wanted to put his skis on again with Arthur Longo! Our two times World Champion title holder would have loved to surf the most beautiful waves of Tahiti with Gary! Never mind - next time&hellip

Valérian Ducourtil, no doubt a little too motivated to get on the plane to Tahiti, put more magic potion into his performance than the others and wound up with a helicopter tour to Grenoble hospital after a fall on the big kicker. Not serious but rather disappointed for not getting to land in Papeete.

Andreas Gidlund and Kalle Ohlson, the two pro-riders of the Bataleon team worth keeping an eye on next season, were definitely the most technical.

Arthur Longo, another local of the event, confirmed his winter performance and got himself an airline ticket to Tahiti and a contract with the resort to recompense his season. And as good news always travels in pairs, at the same time he was given his award he learnt that he had passed his Baccalaureate.

Over on the girls' side, Vicci Miller (UK) stood out by linking runs on the big kickers with immaculate 540s.

With the skiers, Laurent Favre, having injured himself the day before the event, found himself on the judges' bench next to Vanessa Colletta and Fabien Maierhofer. This proved to be a heavy task for these three riders, the high-performance level in skiing being very close and the skiers extremely motivated.

Starting with Richard Permin who, as soon as he arrived at the snowpark, showed he had no intention of making do with half-measures and thanks to doing snake-runs all day, made a name for himself. Ritch knew just how to make the most of the many modules of the park with as much style as technique.

The inseparable duo, Kevin Rolland and Xavier Bertoni also defied the laws of gravity as much on the kickers as on the hip. If the half-pipe event had not been cancelled it's certain that one or other of them would have got to dip their toes in the lagoons of Tahiti.

Arnaud Rougier, winner in 2006, did everything to defend his title. But there were a lot of others competing to bar his route from Tahiti and "freestyling" on the different modules to win the praise of the judges who had a really hard time choosing.

On one side were Guillaume Sbrava, JL Ratchel, Sam Favret, Antoine Diet, Thomas Barnier and P.A Chedal, etc on the kickers, and on the other side were Mickael Deschenaux, Laurent Thevenet, Paddy Graham and Jaime Puidengolles, etc who laid into the American take-off tables with ultra-smooth tricks.

A little further away, Aurélien Fornier remained in the lead of the "tiki" wall ride, Paco Garcia seemed to think he was in a skatepark inventing creative lines like transfers, Mathias Wexcsteen and Pierre Guyot opted for the rails, Arnaud Kugener played stuntman on the bumper modules while others went up high on the hip per the likes of Stephane Vaillant and Vivien Thierry.

On the photographer side, many of the amateurs who were able to take part in the competition came armed with their zoom lenses and among the pros could be found Pascal Boulgakow, Seb Viardot, Elina Sirparanta, Julien Petry, Vanessa Andrieux, Vianney Tisseau, Stef Candé, Thomas Bianchin, Guillame Lahure and Mathieu Georges. Now that's an exhibition which is certainly worth a visit.

To close this atypical event which was very much the must-see event of the summer, the organisers invited all the participants and the spectators on to a specially laid out beach in the Slide Planet car park. No less than 60 cubic metres of white sand, palm trees worthy of the name and garlands of flowers made from Tahitian gardenias offered by the Tahitian men and women.

Later came a Tahitian meal and some coconut punch, the lucky prize winners were announced and given their awards and the evening ended on a lively note with a show by theTahiti Nui. Joli. troupe.

The winners:

Pro Ski: Richard Permin

Pro Girl: Virginie Faivre

Pro Snowboard: David Livet

Pro Photographer: Thomas Bianchin

Eurosport