Highline freestyle is a discipline of slacklining where you perform tricks on a slackline suspended high above the ground. As with regular highlining it can be performed safely, however, freestyle tricks can be incredibly demanding on the athlete’s body.
Have you perhaps come across the #pandemicopen2qualifiers hashtag and want to know more? We dive into the details below.
What is the Pandemic Open Highline Freestyle Competition?
A leader in the development of new highline freestyle tricks, Ian Eisenberg, has helped create a competition to further grow the sport. The competition called the Pandemic Open requires participants to post a video no longer than one minute, to showcase a combination of maneuvers no longer than 30 seconds.
How is the Pandemic Open Judged?
Each entry is judged on the difficulty of the trick (40%), the combination of maneuvers (30%), and the execution of the trick (25%). The athletes are rewarded for displaying a variety of maneuvers (5%) and receive a score of no more than 100.
Tricks are placed in a tier of difficulty to assist the judges with allocating points. The total difficulty score considered the combined score of each individual trick. The duration of the combination of maneuvers and the flow from one trick to the other is considered.
Judges score the execution of the tricks by considering style, control, and creativity. Variety plays a small part in the scoring, but is crucial to consider as a minimum of four line positions are required to receive the full points. While repeated tricks result in a score reduction.
Leighton’s Entry from South Africa
Riding the Highline is proud to have assisted in the filming of Leighton Calder’s submission. His post mentions ‘Just managed to squeak this cute run out for the #pandemicopen2qualifier. Always nice to show the world South Africa’s beautiful lines”
So who won the 2021 Pandemic Highline Open?
After incredible submissions from all corners of the globe, the winners of the qualifiers have been announced. The women’s freestyle top semi-finalist is Carmen Schillingmann (scoring a total of 88.350) who completed a series of rolls and mounts in a smooth style. Her run was awarded a higher total than the powerful combinations performed by Carlo Cozzio who took the top men’s position (scoring a total of 88.169).
You can find the music featured in the video from Grandpa Swamp here.
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