Interview med Bendik Øye
Skribent: Nichlas Langhoff Rasmussen
Bendik Ulshagen Øye er en 21 årig freestyle skiløber fra Gol i Norge. Han studerer idræt på Lillehammer University College. Halvandet år gammel startede han ud på langrend, men efter få år skiftede han til alpin. De senere år begyndte han også på Twintips. Det sidste år har han stået sammen med Andreas Håtveit og Øystein Bråten, og siger selv, at det har været et fantastisk år.
Hey Bendik. How are you doing?
Hey! I’m having a great time! Just now I’m packing my bags for a few days at Folgefonna. Well, actually I’m watching Euro 2012 instead. Haha… Such a bummer that Denmark missed the cut yesterday, but you guys are for sure better than Norway anyway.
Haha, yeah it was a shame! You are packing for Folgefonna, when are you going up there, and are you going to teach at the camps?
Hehe, yeah! I’m leaving home at 04:45 tomorrow morning and will be up at the glacier at 09:45 or something like that! This time it’s only for 3 or 4 days with some good friends from my hometown!
Then I’m going back for the “Kramsjø Camp” from 29. June until fifth of July to coach. It’s just a little cute camp with like 15 campers or so. But it’s fun for sure, and I’m getting paid for it, so I can’t complain!
Would you recommend people from Denmark to go participate in the camps?
Of course the Danish guys should come ski at the camps! The “What camps” have already started, so that’s too late though.
But there it’s still possible to get a spot at the small camp, where I’m coaching! I hope to see some Danish guys up there soon! There’s every level of skiing up there! From kids that working on their first 3s to pros like Andreas. So I don’t think it’s too scary for the Danish kids.
Cool, man! Are we going to see a small edit maybe?
Hmm, I don’t know. It’s so stressful to film when you don’t have a friend that likes to film. And I just finished my season edit. But Andreas was talking about maybe making a little summer TGP episode, but we’ll probably be way to busy just shredding!
How has your season been so far?
This winter was the best winter I can remember, I can’t remember having so much fun since we were crazy kids on snow blades many years ago!
We were all very impressed with what we saw! Has it influenced your skiing, skiing with Andreas, and Øystein this season?
Wow, thanks! Its always fun when people like what they see.
Of course it is a big influence to ski with one of the worlds very best skiers and one of the greatest young talents in the world as well!
I feel so lucky and privileged when I can ski with those guys all the time, and even if I know that I’ll probably never reach their level its still so fun.
As you mentioned your season edit just dropped, and again we were all impressed! Have you been filming for any movie segments this year?
Nice! Thanks a lot. It’s so fun to hear! I have not been filming for any movie, just the edits with Andreas and Øystein. So to get a segment in a real ski movie, would be a dream come true! But there are so many great skiers everywhere, so I think that that’s going to be hard!
Also how did you do on the competition scene?
I have skied the so-called Norwegian Open series here in Norway, but unfortunately the system is kind of whacked.
I skied in the group 20 years plus. It’s like four guys in that group. So if you win that one you get no credit…
Then there’s class 13-15, 16-17 and 18-19 or something… So that system is not the most fun. It would have been so much more fun if all the guys older than 15 years or so competed against each other. The most guys at my age have either become pros or more or less quitted skiing. But I won four out of six competitions in that series, so it was still fun.
And I also went to Finland for the Finnish Freeski open. That was a quite spontaneous trip with my good friend Halvard Thon!
The competition was with both big air and slope style. I think I ended up 7th in big air and fell in both slope style runs. So overall it was a bummer, but it was a great trip anyway!
Yeah the system sounds kind of weird. Thank you very much for your time Bendik! Do you want to give a shout out to anyone here at the end?
Yep, its weird, but its fun to hang around there and meet all the guys! Thanks a lot for checking me out! It isn’t everyday I do an interview. Thanks to my sponsors: Amplid, Orage, Level, Leki & Uvex. Have fun skiing and be sure to follow me at Instagram @bendikoye!