Ramp Built In Record Time For Big Air Milan

There’s a new skyscraper in Milan: it’s the Big Air and the City’s ramp towering at the EXPerience Park, the former Area of Expo Milan 2015, in front of the iconic Tree of Life. Right here, in just over a week, the World’s top athletes are going to compete with amazing stunts for the FIS Snowboard (10-11 November) and Freeski (17-18 November) World Cup points.

The huge scaffolding, the biggest one ever built in Italy, will be the center of the show. The 40-meter high (12 meters more than the Italy Pavillion and 6 meters more than the Tree of Life) and 130-meter long structure, clearly visible even from the near “Autostrada dei Laghi” highway, represents an engineering masterpiece, erected in record time: five days only, from Wednesday 25th to Sunday 29th October. 

The work was carried out by Sartoretto Group, a leading Italian company in the field of events’ stages and setups, and involved up to 30 workers. The ramp has been built with Lahyer scaffolds with a wooden deck on the top, with 2,50x10-meter modular panels employed to make it more resistant and stable.

Compared to last year, the ramp is wider (from 6 to 20-meter width at the Finish Area) and features 2 to 6-metre high parapets, to ensure the highest level of safety for the athletes. But the whole construction philosophy has been improved, as Big Air Competition’s Technical area coordinator Antonio Noris explains:“Big Air Milan 2017’s ramp is the result of a long planning process, carried out in close cooperation with FIS and in particular with Roberto Moresi, Contest Director for the Snowboard and Freeski specialties. It features a 44° steep slope right at the start, followed by a steady 38-degree section. In this way, athletes can immediately gain speed but they have also the time to find the right way to perform their jumps. Also the kicker has been reshaped to allow even more spectacular and safer stunts”.

Spectacle and safety are the key-concepts of the whole project: “Building a ramp adapt to both men’s and women’s competitions in both snowboard and freeski – Noris continues –. The athletes’ safety was our first concern: the 38-degree steep Landing and the 20x20-meter Finishing Area are fit for the purpose. In order to guarantee a no-stop spectacle, an elevator with a capacity up to 10 people has been installed, so the athletes can reach the top of the ramp in just 50 seconds. 

Now only the “furniture” is missing to the new skyscraper in Milan. Starting from Thursday November 2nd, Brianza Energy company will install the powerful lighting system that will allow snowboarders and freeskiers to perform their show at night. The following day, TechnoAlpin will turn on its snow generators: Big Air and the City’s spectacle requires about 1300 mc of snow.

In the end, it’s up to the shapers of the Chiesa in Valmalenco’s Palù Park – just elected as the “Best  Park Alpi Centrali” at 2017 Skipass Awards –, led by Luca Sliky Bagiotti, preparing the slope for the champions. On November 10th the curtain will go up: emotions are granted.