Trip to Lublin Sportival in Poland

So Will was invited a few weeks ago by his sponsors  Dragon and Stance, to attend a new up and coming rail competition in Lublin , Poland. He was due to fly out last weekend  with fellow Dragon Rider ( and UK big hitter) Andy Nudds. Unfortunately at the very minute Andy was'nt able to go, so I was the lucky person to get to go along with Will as a very poor stand-in for Andy.

Lublin was a great city and where the event was staged was spectacular, in front of the old medival castle . The Polish people were very friendly and welcoming to us both.

The rail competition started with practice sessions, and then there were three 20 min heats to qualify  through to the final. Will rode with his usual style against a crew of Eastern European big names including Dragon Rider Ziga Rakovek and the two  Redbull riders Wojtec Pawlusiak and Denis Leontyev.

He was really pleased to get through to the final , where he was competing against the top 9 other male riders ,being by far the youngest rider. In the end of an amazing final with everyone throwing down really stylish tricks, the top riders were Darek Bergman (Czechy) who came first, Wojciech Pawlusiak (Polska) who came second and the very smiley Jessi Blackwell (Norwegia) who came third. 

Through to the Final

The huge Polish crowd took Will to their hearts when he was riding and he also got a great reception from all the other riders. In all , it was a great experience for Will for his first European competition , and it was amazing of Stance and Dragon to make the trip happen. Will was also really lucky to get a new GoPro camera from The Snowboard Asylum. We used it to video some of his riding and this is in the clip below...

hey now...

So Will has this great picture taken by James Streater this last Thursday freestyle night in Milton Keynes .Then on Friday down at the EnviroJam in Hemel Hemstead's Snow Dome,  saw Will having a great time . He was pleased  he made the final and won the under 16 category.

Gorilla Grab, photo credit James Streater of Maverix Snowboard Coaching

This is the soap box Will's Dad made him to compete in last weekend's Soap box derby,  where he won the kids category

Soap Box Racing 

Under 16 Cup Winner

Time away in Italy

Well our Will is  travelling home today , after almost 3 weeks away snowboarding. Its the longest he's been away and we are all missing him very much. Sounds like he's had a great time and he's managed to get some much needed practice on the larger kickers ,as that's  the only thing lacking here in the UK.

Its  going to be Will's 12th birthday on Tuesday and so he definitely needed to be home with his family for that, we may have another triple chocolate cake and request for his favourite meal- Peking Duck .

Will's got another 4 to 5 weeks before he's back out on the mountain, we're trying to get Will as much  mountain time as possible without compromising his school work . Back home he has got some fabulous opportunities coming up, ( will keep you posted on those ) including meeting the Red Bull F1 drivers and snowboarding with Eero Ettala at MK Snozone. 

World Rookie Tour

Well its been far too long since I last updated Will's Blog. He's been out  to the World Rookie Tour in Lavigno in January, where he competed in the Grom Category as one of the youngest competitors there. Will came a brilliant 23rd out of 36 riders and considering he still has another 4 years in that category there is plenty of time for him to get higher up in the rankings. To be honest this competition was  to give Will  his first  experience of a international competition . He had a fantastic time and really loved the airbag there as well as the perfect freestyle parks.

Will also turned 11 year old in January and he had a lovely birthday with a request for Cripsy Duck with pancakes followed by homemade chocolate cake. He had a great day with some cool presents too which of course included some technical lego.

Its been a good few weeks snowboarding wise for Will and I'll update really soon with some more things he's been upto. Yesterday he headed out for another weeks snowboarding in the mountains of Italy with the Why air you Jibbin crew, and he'll hopefully come home to a newly decorated bedroom. I'd better get cracking..

Its Christmas Time!!!

Well Christmas is almost over in the Gilmore house, but the boys have had a great time and Santa was very generous with presents. Typically its been the  Lego and Games that have turned out to be the favourite presents for them both. Will's loved his new iPhone and his Lego F1 car which only took him 6 or so hours to complete.

Snowboarding wise its been a quiet time relatively since Shoreditch .Will has just been doing his usual twice weekly trips to Freestyle night at Snozone Milton Keynes. He loves riding about with the usual crew and having a blast.
He has been really excited about heading out to the mountains though and yesterday we waved him off for two weeks away. He's gone out to Pila to ride with Steve Addicott and Kate Foster, and then is heading off to the World Rookie Tour in Lavigno.We will update more once we have some pictures and news.

Shoreditch Showdown

Wow, Will has been invited to ride in the Shoreditch Showdown Invitational  event in November. Looks like its going to be an awesome street rail set up and will be a  great experience for the little man and once the qualification is over he'll get front row seats to watch the event going down.

Slide to Sochi at Snozone MK

Today Will was part of the Slide to Sochi event at Snozone MK. It is a road show promoting the upcoming Winter Olympics. He got to meet former Olympic athletes Graham Bell , Iwan Thomas and Sir Steve Redgrave. Will was his usual quiet self and was a little too shy to do an interview with ITV , but he was happy to chat and get his photo taken with the Olympians.





With Becky Menday, Sir Steve Redgrave, Euan Thomas and Graham Bell

Signing the giant Slide to Sochi Snowball

In the Fourman Bob Sleigh

In Ellis Bigham

TSA Sponsor our Will

Some great news for Will is that The Snowboard Asylum ,TSA are now sponsoring the little man. It means that he joins another crew of rad snowboarders including Jamie Nicholls , Amy Fuller  and Matt McCormick to name but a few.

Its been an exciting few weeks as also got a cool mention in the latest Whitelines magazine.

Awesome picture

Picture by Jool's Smith on Who's Afraid of the Park Night 
June 15th Snozone MK

Will's TV appearance and Glasgow Grom camp

Its been a while since we updated what Will has been upto. He's been going to the Thursday night shred sessions at MK riding with the usual crew and  then went up to Glasgow  early December for a two day grom camp with Ben Kinnear. That was great as Will got some practice at Bearsden Dry slope even though its not his favorite riding, he does have a go at it every few months or so.

But Will really got the most out of the training at  Braehead Snozone . They did a fabulous job of the indoor double kickers and Will got to practice frontflips and 720 spins which he is getting really close to nailing..It's always great for Will to get to ride with fellow groms too and make more snowboarding friends..     GB Grom Camp in Glasgow

Also the TV shows that Will appeared in have been shown since we last updated . First he had an appearance in CBBC's Newsround and then the Friday Download programme which is below. It Features two fellow Milton Keynes freestyle pals Becky Menday ,who did the snowboard lesson and Jake Binney who rode with Will . Considering how nervous Will and Jake were they did so well and spoke more than we had been expecting.,..

Christmas has been brilliant and his favorite Christmas presents being his Lego R2-D2, his first ever phone and a new jacket.. We have Will's 10th birthday to look forward too over the next few weeks and we asre in the middle of  planning where and when to get Will out riding in Europe..

Will has a small feature

Will rode with the Salomon riders with the rest of the sponsored riders at Snozone MK earlier in the year. And it seems that he has  been given a little 'guest spot' in  one of Jed Andersons video's that has just been released. Talk about an honour to been seen  on the same  clip with an inspiring top class professional rider . Funny to think that thousands of people have seen that video ,and don't know that the little shredder in the yellow and green is our Will...

Team -vacation-jed-anderson

My Lovely New Capita Microscope Snowboard

Will outside Snozone Milton Keynes about to try out his new season Capita Microscope 125

Wow ! I'm on the poster advertising Parkstrife

I'm on the Park strife poster !

Will's Sponsors

                                       Will's  Red Helmet all stickered up with his sponsors

Nike stair set comes to MK Snozone !

Jools Smith took some great pictures of Will on the Nike Stair set that has just taken up residence in the MK Snozone for the next month

Will Gilmore Snowboarding WAYJ

Well its been a relatively quiet few months snowboarding wise for Will, he's just been keeping his head down doing Freestyle nights at his local indoor slope mainly, but he's got a weeks summer camp of freestyle training coming up as well as a trip up to Manchester's Chill Factor next week ...


In the meantime check out Will's fab video taken from edits from his training camps with Steve Addicott over the winter.
It shows edits from Pila , Italy and Avoriaz , France.. Awesome..