Extreme Events at Chamjam

Warning: this article is for extreme readers only. It is definitely not intended for those who feel a nosebleed coming on every time they watch Ski Sunday, or who found the playground slide a little hairy.

Anyone interested in Britain's future in the Winter Olympics, however - and a month on from Salt Lake City, there are apparently more of us than ever - should pay attention. Because events over the past week in the French ski resort of Chamonix, near Geneva, may just represent the future of the winter world.

True, Britain have just enjoyed their most successful Winter Olympics for 66 years (even allowing for Alain Baxter's positive drug test), but for some of our winter events the outlook remains distinctly chilly. Though curling is sure to get a heavier helping of lottery dosh, our snowboarders could see their grants cut after disappointing results last month.

And to those in Chamonix this week for the popular ChamJam "mountain festival" - including many of the world's best freeskiers and snowboarders, notably Britain's Salt Lake half-pipe "flop" Lesley McKenna - any moves to limit the development of skiing's trendy new disciplines would be a short-sighted shame.

Jenny Jones, Britain's leading freestyle snowboarder and a ChamJam devotee, is angered by the talk of funding cuts after McKenna's Olympic setback. "I'm really upset by it," says the 21-year-old from Bristol. "It would be so narrow-minded. Lesley worked so hard and had one bad run. Cutting funds would be like docking David Beckham money for not scoring a goal."

France's Karine Ruby, who is from Chamonix and followed Nagano gold with a snowboard silver in Salt Lake, is similarly supportive of the Winter Olympics' so-called "wicked little sister". She said: "At the moment this is not as big as the Olympics, where the competitors train harder. But in the future it will be just as big because events such as this touch a wider audience. It's where the young people want to go.

"I'm not competing this year but only because I've only just got home from the Winter Olympics. I'll be here next year."

The ChamJam is a white-knuckle ride and an ear-bursting music festival rolled into one. Prounced shamjam, it sounds rather like a pot of fake strawberry preserve and started out as a head-to-head mogul race between the ski bums of Val d'Isère and Chamonix, site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924.

Today, amid the historic Grands Montets of the French Alps, the event is recognised as one of Europe's most popular and innovative winter "freesport" competitions combining snowboarding and the new school of skiing which, increasingly, is affecting the format of the more established side of the sport.

The old dangers are there, of course. The man who said that a skier is someone who jumps to contusions would recognise Chamonix. It's expensive, too. Skiing is still the sport that can cost an arm and a leg, financially and physically. And, as the American writer Corey Ford once observed, why break a leg at 40 below when you can fall downstairs at home?

But the ChamJam, especially for those recovering from 17 days of seriousness in Salt Lake, is very definitely something completely different. The Somerset-born emigré Jamie Strachan, the godfather of British "new school" skiing and a pioneer of ChamJam, makes no bones about the nature of the festival: "Basically it's about young people having fun in the mountains. There is the music and the nightlife as well. It's a lifestyle. This isn't the Olympics.

"The lack of seriousness in the competition makes it more fun for young people. Spectators also get more involved. It's all about energy and atmosphere.

"Kids soon realised snowboarding was great fun. Then the same thing happened to young skiers. They wanted to have more fun too. So the spirit of skiing has been rejuvenated.

"Frankly, alpine racing is finished. It was great to see Alain Baxter winning the bronze medal in Salt Lake City, and sad what has happened since. But freeskiing and snowboarding now represent lifestyles. Skiing is no longer about the old ski chalet holiday."

This year's event defied relatively sparse seasonal snow to become the biggest and most successful to date. It had global TV coverage and benefited from a regularly updated website, www.chamjam.com. Crucially, though, it remains in the hands of its enthusiastic inventors and has its feet firmly in the snow.

The five-day event climaxed yesterday with the Big Air - an acrobatic event, the official website promised, in which "international skiers and snowboarders are brought together to show the spirit of freedom and self-expression, and wow the crowds with their wildest and biggest stunts". It drew professional and amateur skiers and boarders, McKenna included, with $10,000 (£7,000) in prize money put up by the sponsor, Davidoff Cool Water.

But the whole week has been one of turns, burns and jumps, twists and somersaults, grinds and spins. The spectators here, clutching fistfuls of vin chaud, are, essentially, of the participatory variety. They watch, assimilate and then go off and attempt to emulate.

They watch people like Glenn Parsons, a 24-year-old from Evesham who worked as a chef at the Savoy in London for four years but is now Britain's leading freeskier, using shorter, fatter skis than those we are used to seeing on pistes.

Parsons explained: "Freeskiing is the new term we use for all-mountain skiing. It came from snowboarding which, in turn, came from skateboarding.

"Skiers started going into fun parks and terrain parks, going for kickers, sliding on rails and doing half-pipes. More hard-core skiers started hiking two or three hours to ski mountain fresh faces. The two groups have taken skiing into an entirely new scene.

"This is my fifth ChamJam and it's got bigger and better every year. The increased prize money has brought more professionals from all round the world. It's all very cool. The competition is not taken too seriously. And the music, nightlife and party atmosphere is terrific."

The music sounds loud enough to bring down half of nearby Mont Blanc - la haute montagne - in an avalanche. Basically it is dance music with a heavy beat, but bands as different as Zero 7 and Ash have played here this week, while the DJs Eddy Temple-Morris and James Hyman, who co-present the Remix programme weekly on London's XFM radio station, did a show alongside Freq Nasty.

"The music that goes down well here - as with skating and surfing - is dance music that really rocks," Temple-Morris says. "ChamJam is like Woodstock on a mountain."

"This event is where you must come now to see the new stars of the snow," adds James Hunt of Form Talent, which represents a number of leading extreme sports athletes. "It has grown out of all recognition in the past dozen years."

Sometimes, though, one longs for a trained Olympic official with a heart of stone. During Thursday's Jib Jam competition - "Tabletops, rainbow rails and mailboxes: dull your edges or land on your face", since you ask - an energetic terrier called Snowy was repeatedly given the freedom of the obstacle-strewn course.

"Will someone please take that dog away?" boomed the frantic announcer. Nobody did. At the Chamonix ChamJam, Snowy rules.

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