Winter X Games France:
In case of not having the chance to view the first installment of this years Winter X games from the event’s home base in Aspen, CO left you feeling a bit void of the heart pounding, mountain excitement, a second soirée of excitement just wrapped up last Sunday. For the second year running, the sponsors of ESPN and Jeep organized the follow up to Aspen’s games in Tinges, France. It couldn’t be any better of an idea to gather the interest that many of the young and adult demographic enjoy watching than by bringing the eviscerating action to us once more per winter season.
The first session of games takes place in mid- January each year, which for any occasional or avid winter sport recreation lover knows, really the season doesn’t start to blossom until early February. At which time the snows been layering the mountain for months, filling the gaps among the trees and covering any exposed items like the tops of craggy rocks or fallen tree trunks. So to keep the momentum alive for us at home as well as those lucky ski and snowboard enthusiasts living the dream at residences nearby any one of the major resorts, it’s good to catch a round two come mid March.
By this time each year, the weather’s just starting to come out from it’s hard days of winter and in most normal annual snowfall conditions, the mountain will be primed for catering to the wishes of those on either a board or skis. Late winter to early spring is the time to expect a deep base of the white stuff for hard charging turns in the back country and offers the best chance to catch those not so freezing cold days of thick freshies for which to tranquilly glide through. So with this nostalgic argument for the mid season television coverage of ski and snowboarding events having been make, viewers can now get that energized feeling again late each winter by watching part two of the action.
The venue in Tinges, France obviously takes the participants, organizers and viewers out of the more familiar Colorado Rocky surrounding where year in and year out, conditions rank among the best that can be found in the world. But similarly, the northeastern area of France, deep in the Alp Mountains along the borders of Switzerland, Germany and Italy, conditions boast of deep snow accumulation amidst steep and challenging terrain that leaves much to the imagination and risk of the individual in catering to one’s experience.
A major difference that people proclaim between being in the European Alps versus in either the Rockies, the Wasatch Mountain Range of Utah or the Sierra Nevada’s of Northern California is that the Alps maintain fewer skier guidelines and precautionary trail navigation for someone to follow. So as to say that if one chooses to venture out of the controlled beginner or intermediate sections of an Alpine ski mountain, they may quickly find themselves confronted with a vast and potentially treacherous area to descend from.
Whereas in the United States, resort owners and ski patrol personnel take careful precaution in designing the skiable access to prevent the unintended veering off by an unaware novice or intermediates into hazardous areas, which is not always the case in Europe. It has often been said that in the Alps one can start their morning by traversing the slopes of France to find themselves ending the day at the bottom of a mountain in Switzerland or vice versa. This is due to the greater discretion left up to the individual in following the less well defined boundaries in many of the ski locations in Europe.
Also as is much of Europe, a greater reminiscence for an earlier, less modern era is to be experienced in some facets of activity where as in the US, liability concerns combined with the expectation for state of the art conveniences are the standard. This is not to take away from the amazing spectacle to be had by personally experiencing or at least viewing the excitement of US resort winter sports extravagance. But in a slightly different fashion, the European ski experience seems to be one that is steeped in a slightly older tradition recalling the era of old wool apparel, leather protective gear, and clunky equipment encompassed into the sport of quickly traversing a downhill mountainous course. Defying fear by speeding through uncertain conditions at high speeds while trying to out perform a competitor to the sweetness of victory captures an essence of that old timer winter sports spirit. Back then in the sixties, seventies and eighties the excitement was likely to be most ephemeral late in the day in the occasion of trumpeting prideful remarks amongst the competitors and other patrons inside of an après ski chalet over the enjoyment of fresh snacks and libations.
These days as the sport has obviously transformed from those earlier days of competition which had the effect of pronouncing one’s national honor based upon sheer time trial performance that were held in places like Kitz Buhl, Austria and Chamonix, France. Back then, the likes of Jean Claude Keeley helped establish world wide intrigue for the sport of down hill skiing and brought it to the celebrity status that it was renowned for amongst the greats who were able to advance themselves to the upper echelons of the sport.
The more recent breed of celebrated winter sport professionals have been the Tommie Moe, Boddie Miller and Johnny Mosely who competed for many years recently on the skiing side of the equation. However they have aged and found themselves now out glorified in the eyes of much of the young America’s spectators by the flashy, gravity defying spectra of skier half pipe and big air competitors. While the snowboarding masters have obviously emerged throughout the last decade to really help bring world attention to the wonder that these expert riders can perform through gyrating twists and flips led to some extent by the phenom, Shaun White.
Other immensely gifted snowboard professionals who give it their all on the world tours as well as the freestyle skiers, all come to demonstrate their skills and cajones at these Winter X games. So to get a better picture of who the other incredible X game athletes are and recap their performance with some exciting video highlights of the action, we’ll proceed to a brief round up of what went down last week from Tinges, France.
The breakdown of different events is quite simple particularly after the organizers having eliminated several of the recent competitions such as the skier/ border cross and snowmobiling. The first of the two was the top to bottom race amongst a group of contenders barreling down the course at high speeds while hitting moderate size jumps and guarding against unintentional(or intentional) jabs from the person beside them. But just recently after suffered the tragedy in the Aspen snow mobile event from one of the two Moore brothers who tragically lost his life attempting a double back flip while straddling the supercharged, heavy vehicle flying through the air. The danger of such a stunt is as was seen, is so extreme and where to tell athletes to draw the line in their trick routines is difficult from an supervisory stand point, so simply pulling the event from the competition for the time being seemed to be the most practical decision. In remembrance of the heroic extreme sports performance that Moore had exhibited over the years and the person he was, frequent honor was paid in his respects throughout much of the games from Tinges.
The categories of competition last week included the super pipe and slope style for both skiing and snowboarding between male and female athletes. So a total of eight events filled with game’s line up all of which include preliminaries, quarter/semi and final runs of competition offering a lot of action for both the riders and spectator to be psyched about.
Of a total of ninety six total individuals invited to participate in this years events, just three were competing in multiple events including the male skiers Gus Kenworthy(USA) and Jossi Wells(NZD) as well as Peetu Piroineu(FIN). The total of males versus females was sixty one to thirty four making the early rounds more of a challenge for the male riders to push their limits in setting solid scores during first rounds in hopes of outperforming the large number of competitors in both the male skiing and snowboarding events.
The women also were pushing themselves hard but with a smaller pool of contenders made for a somewhat lesser intense competition in the early rounds for securing themselves a spot towards the finals. But regardless all roads lead to either victory or defeat so these athletes had a lot to show in order to make a strong impression and vie for one of the three medals in each of the events.
Jumping into the men’s skier half pipe competition witnessed the young seventeen year old phenom Torin Yalter Wallace of the United States showed that all of the hype and previous gold medal awards that he’s received earlier this year in the Aspen games was no fluke. He threw some amazing tricks repeatedly to beat out other fellow American David Wise who proudly took home a silver and local Frenchman Kevin Rolland had impressive performances to achieve a bronze.
Men’s snowboard half pipe was somewhat at a loss this year as Shaun White opted not to compete. So the territory for multiple high altitude spins and graceful high stakes tricks would have to be claimed by another brave snowboarding champ. The big man to win the crowds praise was the Swiss rider, Louri Podladtchikov. He defied the limits of talent by becoming the first to ever pull a corkscrew 1440, a total of five and a half rotations through the air. He landed it in apprehensive grace and after that trick was completed launched into a similar big air spin move which he wasn‘t able to land. Yet the crowd and judges were none the less pretty much enthralled with his skill which left the door open for him to make way to the bronze medal spot on the podium. First place went to US rider Louie Vito whose stellar run clipped second place Arthur Longo of France.
The slope style competition offers up monstrous excitement where the guys navigate through the park with enormous size kickers, launching themselves upwards of thirty feet in the air to complete the most incredible tricks in hopes of pulling out the hard planted landing on the other side of these jumps.
On the skiing side you had several USA guys competing amidst many other competitors from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, New Zeeland, Great Britain and other locations. The two men skiers that were participating in both the half pipe and slope style were Jossi Wells(NZL) and Gus Kenworthy(USA). Mcraie Williams a Park City, Utah resident ended up taking the gold medal. Here are the lists of winners of the other events and sweet videos from some of the action!
Men’s Slope Style Snowboarding Competion medal winners were as follows: Sebastian Toutant(gold), Mark McMorris(silver) and Peetu Piiroinen who also competed in men’s Half pipe took home the bronze.
In women’s half pipe snowboard action saw a snowy day of competition which offered some weather relief during the reigning champ Kelly Clark’s run. The snow fall lessoned a bit during her finals runs maybe offering a bit of an advantage for her to stick those tricks that eventually won the judges attention in awarding her third consecutive Winter X Games Pipe Gold medal. Silver and Bronze went to Elena Hight and Arielle Gold also of the US team.
Women’s Snowboarding Slope style was an intense competition with the reigning champ Jamie Anderson going for her fifth consecutive slope style gold. Yet fate disrupted her impressive streak and awarded the gold this year to Silje Nordelal of Norway. Second place Aimee Fuller caught major attention with her 1080 double back flip. Event all-star Anderson managed to get bronze.
Women’s slope style was impressive particularly for the Canadians. The slope style gold and bronze both went to that country with Kara Turski and Dara Howell medaling respectively while silver in the event went to an equally astonishing Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen of Norway with a 900 tail grab on her best run. With the lady skiers in the pipe offering a hometown salute for the French gold and silver medalists Marie Martinod-Routin and Anais Caradeux. They awed and impressed as did the American Maddie Bowman who won gold two months before in Aspen. Catch some of the real video action below. What a show that these young winter professionals are able to perform.
Select a clip to Play!
Men's Ski Slopestyle Silver Medal Snowboard Men's Halfpipe Winner
Men's Snowboard Slopestyle Snowboard SlpeStyle
Women's Snowboard 1/2 Pipe Men's Bronze Snowboard Women's Ski Slpe Style
Super 1440 Pipe Trick Mens Slopestyle Ski
Men's Slopestyle Snowboard Mens Slopestyle Winner