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There's no business like snow business

By Roy Done
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Monday, Jul 25, 2005, Page 16

A mixture of events never before seen in Taipei brought out the crowds to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. PHOTOS: LIN CHENG-KING, TAIPEI TIMES

Nokia's Totally Board was called the most expensive outdoor event in Taiwan's history and you could see why. Moving snow into Chiang-Kai-shek Memorial Hall in the middle of summer and keeping it from melting in the blistering sun must have burned Nokia's pockets.

Totally Board was a new event for Taiwan, with snowboarding/skiing, skateboarding/BMX competitions.

"I love it, it's just something you don't see in Taipei because of the weather," one enthusiastic crowd member said.

The day started with skateboarding and BMX preliminaries, which were entertaining enough, even though you did get the feeling some of the guys just weren't trying, or just weren't any good.

Then the snowboarding and skiing preliminaries kicked off, with two malnourished-looking commentators showing off their lack of tact by making fun of one of the participant's name.

The snowboarders and skiers did better, executing their jumps with a lot of flailing and crashing, or pulling off flawless crowd-pleasing jumps.

The crowd loved them, gave applause when deserved and let out the usual "oohs" and "aahs" when it looked like someone got hurt.

In one corner of the park Nokia predictably showed off its new gadgets. To enter the marquee there was a huge queue and one couldn't help but wonder why? since all you got for going in was a small carton of ice tea and a visor.

As for the musical stage shows there was a variety of artists, like MC Hotdog, Stanley Huang and the internationally famous Coolio. It was enough to keep the crowd amused and the performances themselves were competent and bright.

The sun, however, was intense and there were few places to cool down in the center of the park. The hot weather deterred some spectators from coming earlier and when the sun went down they descended, swelling the crowds to up to 120,000 at one point, according to the organizers.

You would have thought that they would have been able to provide toilets though. All those people and nowhere to go.

The sun and the heat also created big problems for the competitors. Skier Mart Perendi said, "The runway is really sticky, so you can't get enough speed."

So, usually rain is the ruin of events but on this occasion the sun made conditions difficult. But for most people, it was a lot better than being totally bored.

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