When teenager Henry Edmondson visited Japan In 2020 to try his hand at snowboarding no one imagined that three years later he’d be ranked 5th in the world in the men’s junior Freeride category.
Amazing, yes, and even more so considering that Henry comes from the small WA town of Denmark, thousands of kilometres away from the nearest snow.
And if movies like Cool Runnings (about a Jamaican bobsled team) and Eddie the Eagle (about a British Olympic ski jumper) spring to mind you’d be correct in thinking that Henry’s story would also make a great script for a film.
Henry on podiums overseas (left on the left, right on the right).
Photos: Deb Edmondson
With the obvious absence of snow in his hometown it’s fair to wonder how on earth does Henry train.
“I’ve been surfing since I was a little kid and snowboarding is a lot like surfing,” Henry says.
“You need balance, control, air awareness and spatial awareness, all with a board attached to your feet. You also need to be really fit if you want to be really good. I work on his fitness and aerial control by surfing at my local beach and by practising on our trampoline.”
And while all of this helps, nothing can really prepare Henry for the style of snowboarding he’s chosen to pursue. Henry is a Freerider.
“Freeriding is an extreme, high speed, aggressive sport. It’s all about big mountains and steep slopes. To me, it’s far more interesting than snowboarding down the same run over and over again. Where’s the challenge in that? In freeriding you go to places others don’t go.
“The natural features on a mountain – the ones skiers strive to avoid like boulders, trees and drop offs – are the things that freeriders aim their boards at. We use them as props for performing tricks, showing skill and scoring points.”
These wild rides lead Henry to often hurtle down vertical faces with a 200 metre drop and the starting position is sometimes at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,000 metres above sea level and he’s travelled to Europe, New Zealand, Canada and Australia’s Eastern States to train and compete.
Closer to home, Henry’s parents, Chris and Deb, are equally in awe of their teenage son.
“He’s been the driver of this, not me,” says Deb.
“ He researches everything then hands me the plan and says, ‘this is what I want to do and this is how we can do it’. We’re by no means rich but any parent of a child that’s dedicated to their dream will move heaven and earth to make it happen.”
Deb adds that her son now has an international network of Freeriding friends and laughs when she recounts their prominent topic of conversation.
“The friends always talk about how the snow is where they are and Henry, well, he talks about how the snow isn’t.”
Just as funny is the competition confusion caused by her son’s country of origin.
“When officials announce him over the PA system they’d sometimes call him ‘Henri from Austria’. They just can’t fathom that he’s from Australia let alone from a place that’s 3,500kms away from the nearest snow. Of course, every time we say ‘Denmark’ people instantly think of Scandinavia.”
But Deb is certainly not smiling when she talks about the extreme nature of what her son does.
“I get nervous and scared when I watch him compete. I just want him to be alive at the end of each event. I’ve seen plenty of bodies, with boards attached, cartwheeling down the mountain. They call it tomahawking; people get hurt, bones get broken.”
Henry says he does get nervous before he rides but not scared and at the moment he has just one thing in mind… the 2024 World Championships in Austria.
Related stories: Snowboarder climbs world rankings; Surfing serves top snowboarder well.
