Miikka (say mee-ee-KA) Hast
Snowboard Pro Forum

Name: Miikka (say mee-ee-KA) Hast

Date of birth: 5/18/81

Started riding in what year? 94

Sponsor/s? Flow, Dragon, Giro, Gotcha,and Demon

Where did you grow up? Nokia, Finland

Live now? Rovanemi, Finland

Fave places to ride? Ruka, Finland, and Whistler, Canada when it's good. Wherever the snow is good.
Ruka is a pretty small mountain with a good park, Compared to the states it's like an East Coast mtn, it's even smaller. You can take 40 laps per day. Lots of jumping.

Do you warm up each day before you ride? If so, what do you do to warm up? A little, nothing special. Just stretch, and go to the mountain and ride easy for a couple of laps.

How keep in shape in season? How keep in shape for snowboarding out of season? In season, stretching and sometimes playing other sports.
Out of season I skateboard, play tennis, play football, and go to the gym a couple of times per week. In winter I don't have a lot of time for other sports but I play tennis onece in a while and swim.

Fave riding buddies? My Finnish friends. Antti Autti and Risto Mattila, and Marku Koski, and Tuomo Ojala.

Who do you admire in snowboarding or outside and why? In snowboarding and life I admire people who are doing their own thing and not following other people, and are happy about it.

Do you ever get bummed out about your riding, and why? Yeah sometimes, if it's not going good, if I lose a trick or a contest goes bad.
How do you fix it? I try it again of course, and maybe try something else for a while and then go back to it. I try not to think about it until I go back to it.

Do you use visualization, and if so, how? A little bit. I think about the tricks I want to do. If it's a new trick, I'll think about it the day before, and then of course before I do it.

How did you learn to speak English so well?
Everybody in Finland has to learn some English in school. It's mandatory to study for 6 years, Then I've been travelling for 5 years, so you get quite good at it because you have to speak it so much.

What have you been doing during your travels for 5 years?
Contests, photo shoots, filming. And seeing a lot of new places, meeting a lot of new people.

Did you ski?
Yes, for a couple of years when I was young. But that didn't work out too well.

What safety equipt. do you wear, use for snowboarding? Sometimes a helmet. Usually in the contests, or if it's really icy. In some contests it's mandatory.

If you're pro, when did you decide to “go pro” — and what happened to get you there? I was snowboarding a lot with Risto and Antti and Marku back in the day, and we went to Europe during World Cups and other countests, and then I met the right people, and had some luck, and I turned pro with the help from Tuomo and Risto. My first sponsor was Elan in Finland. My first international sponsor was Flow.

What have you read, listened to seen that you liked lately? Small Finnish bands, like "I walk the Line" and "Moses Hazy". A lot of Pearl Jam, a lot of rock and roll. I've been going to a lot of live concerts and festivals in Finland this summer.

Where have you traveled to lately that you like? Sweden, to the snowboarders golf contest. Priepan won. Jakob Wilhelmson came in second and was one of the organizers. I golf a little too.

Any guilty pleasures? Salted licorice that you can't get outside of Finland. Or having a couple of beers during the week, or maybe more.

Have you done well in any contests lately that you want to tell us about? We won the TW team challenge in Aspen, but not due to me.

Last year was pretty difficult for me, I had an injury at a bad time.
I dislocated a rib. I landed on my ass in the pipe,and somehow it popped out. It was painful. In mid January. I think it was Friday the 13th. I just had to stay still, to not move it. I had to stay out of snowboarding and couldn't do any sports for 5 weeks.
I was supposed to be in the Olympics, but couldn't because of the injury. Yes, it was a little upsetting, but it's part of the sport. Of course I was pissed for a while.

Anything that not many people know about you that you would like to share? No, I like to keep myself quite private. I listen to a lot of music, l watch movies, and hang out with friends.

Encouraging words for beginners? Just believe in what you do, whatever it is, and be determined.