My first memory of Yanneck goes way back. He was just a little kid then – the cute nephew of my girlfriend at the time. He was always buzzing around somewhere, with that wide-eyed look and a smile that sticks in your mind: just someone you immediately grow fond of.

As my own snowboarding career took me away from the Allgäu region at an early age, I only saw him sporadically. We really got to know each other at the Elooa Camp, which I started with two friends. He was initially a young participant, remained loyal to the camp for years, and eventually became a coach himself. Even then, it was clear what made him so special: his incredibly warm, authentic, and attentive manner. And, of course, his omnipresent joy in snowboarding, without any loud ego.

As a super-talented young rider, he was eventually faced with the question: should he focus entirely on performance? Association, boarding school, the big stage? His answer was practical: no. I'm staying here. I'm staying true to myself. In doing so, he certainly made some compromises and chose not to strive for the big time, opting for a life connected to himself and his friends in the Allgäu region. That impressed me. And touched me.

Nevertheless – or perhaps because of this – his own path worked out. He developed a distinctive style. Less focused on the purely technical difficulty of his tricks, but all the more on beauty and genuine enjoyment. That stood out. And at some point, my long-time partner Nitro Snowboards became his, too.

Suddenly, we were back on the mountain together, shooting for Nitro. That feeling of having accompanied someone for so many years and now being able to fully share what had connected us from the beginning was very special.

Yes, I really appreciate Yanneck. As a snowboarder, but above all as a person.

- Elias Elhardt

Interview by Alexander Taferner (@dysalexie)
Photos by Sam Moody (@clubmedsucks)

You grew up in the Allgäu region in southern Germany. How did you get into snowboarding?
Through my aunt, actually. I've been skiing since I was four because my aunt has a ski school and my mom often helped out there as a ski instructor. Because it was easiest for my parents, she always took me to the ski school on weekends. That's how I got started. I took up skiing early on and have always been a bit inspired by winter ever since. My aunt was dating Elias Elhardt at the time, and he always gave me all the videos from Pirate Movie Production. These little booklets with the DVD in the back. I looked through these pictures, and when they have trippy things in them, it really blows your mind as a kid. And then you watched a snowboard movie, and for me, that was the most amazing thing ever. I was still skiing at the time, but I watched it with great enthusiasm. And then, when I was 8 or 9, I think, my aunt gave me a snowboard as a gift. And so I alternated between skiing and snowboarding at ski school, but I ended up sticking with skiing more because I didn't have any friends who snowboarded. Then, at some point, I met my now really good friend Gabriel Koch, and he was also snowboarding. That was when I was 13. From then on, I really only snowboarded every day and didn't touch my skis anymore.

Wow, so you really skied for a long time.
Yeah, totally. When I was 11 or 12, I tried freeskiing for the first time, then got into park skiing and snowboarding a few times. I was always alone and didn't know anyone, and it was always cooler to be in a group. And when I met Gabriel, he was super confident on his snowboard, and I thought to myself, “Okay, awesome, now I'm going to snowboard too.” And then it didn't take long before I felt like I could go as fast as I could on skis and keep up with my parents and so on. And then I only snowboarded.

Despite its small size, the Allgäu region has produced a lot of pretty amazing talent over the years. Was there anyone you looked up to?
Yes, a few. First and foremost, Elias, who was my first real contact with snowboarding. It was so tangible because I met him in the evening with my aunt, talked about it, and he told me stories. He's always been a huge role model. But then there were all the local legends from the Grasgehren days, when I got a bit more involved in the scene with Samy [Kautner]. There were all the older guys who were jibbing there, and heroes like Tajo Seefried, a really cool guy, Alex Tank, all the people you would look up to. Then there's Michi Zirngiebel, whom I still meet up with today when we're pow, and yeah, pretty much everyone, really. Sure, there are a few who stand out, like Alex Tank and Elias, but generally the whole community in Grasgehren or in Allgäu. Samy and I were always the youngest. For Beers & Burgers and other stuff, we always went with a group of people who picked us up in the morning because we didn't have a car, and our parents didn't feel like driving to Grasgehren every time. That was so cool, they always picked us up and took us with them. Tajo in particular often picked us up at 6 a.m. on weekends when we didn't have school, and then we went to Grasgehren because he still had to shape the park beforehand or prepare Beers & Burgers. Then we spent the whole day on the mountain, and at the end we had to, or wanted to, help with the reshaping, and then Tajo drove us home again.

You were on the German national team for a while and then decided to retire and go your own way. How did you come to that decision?
Gabriel and I were at an Elooa camp, and Friedl May was there as a coach. I think he's still the national coach, and he saw us and said, "Hey, there's a tryout in Kaunertal at the end of the season. If you're interested, come along.“ So we went to the trials, and [Maxi] Preissinger and everyone else were there too. We snowboarded with them for four days, and then they said, ”If you're interested, you can join the team next year. I think it was the Bavarian squad at the time, Flying Potatoes or something like that. I don't know exactly what kind of roster status it was. The cool thing was that Samy was there, Moritz Amsüß was there, and so on. There were lots of young people there, and we were able to go to all the cool ski resorts, like Kaunertal and Hintertux, independently of our parents, places I would never have been able to go to without a driver's license. And yeah, that's why I did it for years, because it wasn't really an association as we know it today. Everything was relatively loose, and it always felt more like a snowboarding trip. Sure, you took part in the odd contest, but it didn't really matter what place you came in. You just went snowboarding and were glad when the contest was over. That's how it was until I was 16, when, if you had enough points or the coaches saw potential, you were invited to Berchtesgaden for five days or a week to be tested at the boarding school. Samy, Moritz, and I were all there the same week and checked it out. And for me, right from the start, I had no desire to go there. I don't want to speak badly about it, not at all. But back then, it was still just a pure ski jumping center, ski racing, so all kinds of sports were represented there, and snowboarding was just in its early stages. I couldn't imagine moving away from home at all. I wanted to finish high school with my parents, go to school, and wakeboard in the summer. So from the beginning, I thought it was really cool to take all that with me, but I never wanted to go to boarding school. And if you're committed to going there, it's for a specific reason, and that reason is the Olympics, which was something I never saw myself doing. So that's why it was over relatively quickly then.

Besides snowboarding, you're also a pro wakeboarder. How does one influence the other, and do you prefer one over the other
Well, if I had to choose, I'd definitely choose snowboarding because it just feels freer to me. But wakeboarding and snowboarding complement each other really well for me personally. So far, I haven't found any other way to train for riding rails than on a wakeboard. At the beginning, you have to get into wakeboarding so that you understand the lift and how everything works, because you have a cable in your hand and it feels completely different. But once you've been doing it for a few years, you can basically wakeboard the same way you snowboard, without needing to use the cable as much. And then you can really, really practice your snowboarding tricks because you can just switch off your brain. You don't have to worry about falling on a patch of ice or anything like that. And that's what makes it so great. I always notice this at the beginning of the season, when you come from wakeboarding and then start riding rails in Hintertux at the opening, you already have some of the tricks down. You have to get used to the fact that you have a metal edge and you catch an edge much faster. But otherwise, in terms of movement, it's totally muscle memory from the summer and really good for that. But for jumps, for example, it's no good at all. That's something completely different.

These two sports are definitely a good combination, but still different enough. And I think it gives me a new perspective on snowboarding, that you can do tricks a little differently. Conversely, when snowboarding as well as wakeboarding, you look at the park a little differently than you might otherwise if you snowboard all year round. Yes, and for me personally, that's also a reason why I left the national team. I couldn't snowboard all winter and then fly to New Zealand, Australia, and places like that in the summer. I would simply lose interest in the sport.

Speaking of balance, you basically snowboard in winter and wakeboard in summer, so you're on the road a lot. What do you like to do when you're not standing on a board and cruising around on water of various conditions?
After school, I went to uni first so I could have more freedom to snowboard, since I didn't see myself as a professional snowboarder. It all developed very naturally. I was pretty busy with it at first. Only now, since I've got my bachelor's degree, I'm fully in the sports bubble. But I really enjoy doing creative things and love painting in the evenings. I also do quite a few other sports: I really enjoy playing tennis with my dad and playing padel. Hiking in the summer is a big thing for Samy and me. We go to the mountains, sleep there, and watch the sunset. Actually, I try to spend as much time as possible with my friends in the summer because you're on the road a lot in the winter.

You studied marketing and project management. Did you take any lessons or ideas from your studies that you now use in snowboarding?
Absolutely. For example, my studies helped me a lot in that I've been with O'Neill for a long time, and when I got to the point where I had to do a mandatory internship, I had the opportunity to do an internship at O'Neill's headquarters in Amsterdam, which was really cool because I got to know the brand itself much better, the people behind the brand, because otherwise you usually only have contact with a team manager. This happened at the same time as I got the opportunity to do a bit more filming at Nitro, which allowed me to juggle everything and take a look behind the scenes at O'Neill, see the structures, how the company is set up, who is behind it, and in what positions. It's really cool to take a look inside a company like that. Everyone was super nice, and I was given a lot of freedom in campaign and strategic planning for the team.

I always get the sense that you've been active in the scene for a long time, but at some point in the last few years, there was a sudden change, and you really took off. Did you feel that way, too, and what happened?
Well, I definitely noticed that a lot more is happening now, and it was really a season where everything was crazy, and funnily enough, it was the Corona year, where it was such a crazy winter anyway, and then traveling was generally more difficult for all brands, so Nitro had to or wanted to film a lot in Europe, especially in Austria, because there was so much snow and you couldn't fly to Japan or the US or anywhere like that. Knut sent me a message asking if I'd like to film something for the new movie they were planning, and I said, “Sure, I'm definitely in.” It was just one day when I was supposed to go to Arlberg, and Markus Rohrbacher, Tom Tramnitz, and Karsten Boysen were there too, and we just filmed a little bit. For me, it was the first time I'd been involved in something this big, and I was totally in awe. It was a really cool experience, and afterwards I thought, “Yeah, cool, that's it. A few photos, a few cool things.” I had no idea what they were doing. They just said, “Come with us.” And then Knut said to me, “Hey, that was really cool. How about you just go with them for the next three weeks?” And then we drove through Austria in the Sunlight camper to different spots and just filmed there. Suddenly, Markus Keller, Elias, and so on, were there. I felt like I wasn't really supposed to be there, but everyone was super nice, and it was a really good time. When it was over, I went back to Kempten. Then the following year, they said, “Hey, come to the video premiere in Oberammergau.” And then I was sitting there in the cinema, and suddenly I saw all the shots that had been used, and Karsten had really included some cool shots with me and put together a kind of small part. And that was really the start of me being noticed more by the other brands I was already riding for. One thing led to another, and that was the starting point.

It must have been really surreal, going from Elias being your aunt's boyfriend to filming with him.
That was the craziest thing for me, because I had known Elias for a long time and everything, but for me, he was still my hero, like in snowboarding, and then to be standing on the mountain with him, building a jump, preparing a spot, and stuff. It just felt like being in a snowboarding movie. That's how it seemed to me, and it was so cool. For example, I was sitting around a campfire with Karsten Boysen once, and we were talking about snowboarding movies, what I'd been watching, and stuff. And I said the Nitro movies always got me the most excited because they hyped me up so much for snowboarding, and I mentioned names like ‘The Bad Seeds’ and similar movies. And then he said that he made those movies. He was the guy who filmed and edited everything. Those were such cool moments because when you're snowboarding, you often only see the movies and the final product, but those were moments when you could look behind the scenes. And yes, that was definitely one of the coolest experiences I've had there. It was like the curtain had fallen, and you could see who was behind it.

How wonderful. You ended up in the very place you once admired. That's so nice. Now you're in Japan. What kind of projects are you working on right now?
Since last season, we've been filming for the TDI movie, which will be released next season, and for O'Neill at the same time, because they're also doing a video project that will be released next year. Nitro is also doing something, but I don't have any details about the concept yet. The main priority is the TDI movie, and then the O'Neill movie and Nitro.

Sweet. Who else is involved in the O'Neill project?
Well, Seb Toots is filming a part; he's stopped competing and is now fully focused on filming. Then there's Dusty [Henricksen] and Maisie [Hill]. And then there are a few European snowboarders. There are supposed to be four main parts, and footage from the national team riders from each country will be incorporated into the movie around them.

With TDI, you've been traveling a lot over the last few years. How did you guys meet, and what's it like for you to be part of this crew?
That kind of brings us full circle. Funnily enough, it was also through the Nitro movie, because Lou, who basically started the whole TDI thing, was sitting at some movie premiere in America and watched the Vámonos movie. I think he had only been snowboarding for a year and only knew Zeb Powell as a black snowboarder. Then he saw shots of me, immediately wrote to my team manager, and asked how he could get in touch with me. Then he just sent me a DM on Instagram saying we should go shred. He came to visit me, and we drove to Laax and got to know each other there. That was at the Laax Open back then. He was there for the US team anyway, because he was filming the pipe team, and we went there a week before and hung out, filmed a bit, chatted a bit, and he told me about his ideas for TDI, and since then the relationship has become more intense every year, which is really cool, because I got to know the other people too. It's a longer process, of course, because they're in America and you don't see each other that often. But now they're all friends, like family, and it's turned out really cool.

For me, the cool thing about TDI is that there aren't that many other black kids in the Allgäu region, and regardless of snowboarding, it was just super cool because I also have American citizenship because of my dad, who is from New York, but since I grew up in Germany, I never had a super close relationship with my family in America. I was never too close with the family members outside of my immediate family, so it was really cool to get to know this other side of myself a little better through TDI and to hang out with people from different backgrounds who are also part of who I am. That's why, for me, it's more than just snowboarding. It's also my father's side, so to speak, which I've integrated into my life on a personal level and find extremely cool.

When you're hanging out there as a country boy from Allgäu, and suddenly you're with people who come from New York and Cali and who knows where else, and maybe they're on a completely different level, and it's really funny, just because it's so multicultural. Just connecting with your own roots.

Do you have any other plans for this winter?
I've been busy for a while now organizing an event with Samy and Moritz at Crystal Ground. It's supported by O'Neill, but it's just meant to be a community event. There used to be a really big scene in the Allgäu, but unfortunately it's gotten smaller and smaller over the years, until now we only have two parks, if you count Crystal Ground, which is actually in Austria, in Allgäu, so we just wanted to do something similar to what we experienced as groms back in the day, like Beers & Burgers or Alex Tank's Jib Factory, and based on that, we thought it would be cool to organize an event again. It will take place from March 18 to 22.

So, there's an official public day. That will probably be the 21st. We're not quite sure yet which day we'll do it, but probably the 21st. It's just a public day with a reggae sound system, a buddy of mine, Roots of Wisdom. He's setting up his entire system at the park base. We're basically shaping the whole park, especially for the event.

Normally, Crystal Ground is only on the left half of the slope, but we're allowed to move the park to the entire slope. They've also built obstacles with lots of snow, so there's enough to push a big corner, which is basically a highlight obstacle. And then there are things like Longest Rail, Cash for Tricks, Stuff for Tricks, and Free Barbecue—the classic stuff you know from events like this. It's just about having a good time and making sure that everyone, whether they're just starting out in the park or are fully advanced pros, has fun. In the days leading up to the event, we've invited a few riders to stay at the accommodation right next to the park, and it's all about making a cool video with them. We're working with Crystal Ground and a snow sculpture shaper who will basically carve a dragon into the hip and maybe build a few other snow sculptures, and we also want to do some night shots with cool lighting effects and black paint, because we can run the lift and turn on the floodlights whenever we want. The goal of the whole thing is simply to have a good time with the invited riders and make a cool video, whether it ends up being 5, 6, or 3 minutes long or whatever.

Any final words you'd like to share with the world?
Yes, for snowboarding, just have fun shredding. Just do what you feel like doing. That's also what's supposed to be the spirit of the event. We'll be happy to see anyone who feels like coming by. It's going to be an extremely relaxed environment, and it's just about having a good time. And otherwise: Pray for snow. I think that's the most appropriate thing to say right now.

This article was originally published as the intro of Pleasure #158. For the complete reading experience, with more photos and the unmatched feel of a print magazine, order your copy of the magazine here, or even better, support print by becoming a subscriber!

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