Winter X Preview: Men's Ski Slopestyle

     With the XGames just one day away my stoke level is significantly rising. Winter X ranks near the top of my favorite sporting events. The entire freeskiing community descends on Aspen for four action packed days of skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling.

      The Men's Ski Slopestyle event is always a much watch, coupling rails with massive jumps always makes things interesting. With more rails and more jumps this year there will be even more opportunity for the athletes to impress the judges. Here are my picks for the medals:

Gold:      Russ Henshaw- This Aussie has been racking up the honors this year with gold at The DewTour Breckenridge and a silver at the Copper Grand Prix, I don't see him slowing down this weekend

Silver:    Gus Kenworthy- This Telluride native has so many tricks in his bag and an added 4th jump will certainly help propel him up the leader board

Bronze:  Tom Wallisch- Tom has had an injured knee, but claims he's healthy, definitely has the talent and skill to win it all.

Once again Aspen has assembled an amazing slopestyle course. Check out the videos below.

See Slopestyle Course Preview Here

And here are some of the athletes' takes on this years course:

Here's a little extra treat: Gus Kenworthy throwing down in Breck

Let the XGames begin!

XGames Athlete Review: Tanner Hall

      With the XGames only one week away, it is time to focus on the athletes who will be congregating in Aspen, Colorado for the greatest four-day event in winter sports competition. The one athlete I am most excited to see compete this year is Tanner Hall. While Tanner is no stranger to the XGames, it will be his first time competing in the event since 2009.
      ESPN writer, Megan Michelson, recently wrote a great article on Tanner's journey back to competition after suffering career threatening knee injuries. I do not think anyone could have written it better than her so I strongly recommend that you read her article HERE.

    If you have any free time, I'd also suggest watching Inspired Media's 2011 documentary on Tanner Hall, "Like a Lion". The trailer is below.

Regardless of where Tanner Hall finishes in the standings, it will be great to see him back in the competition that he has dominated for much of his career.

The Future has arrived: Mikaela Shiffrin

      Having just watched Mikaela Shiffrin win her 3rd World Cup Slalom race of the season at at 17 years and 308 days (the same age Annemarie Moser-Proil was when she won her 3rd of a record setting 62 World Cup victories), it is very hard to not start mentioning this young woman as one of the greats of the sport. She has now won three of the last four World Cup Slalom events. In under two seasons on the World Cup circuit she has finished on the podium five times (2 third places and 3 wins). To put that into perspective, Lindsey Vonn, who admittedly is not strong in the slalom, has only won a World Cup Slalom event two times in her career and has a total of 5 podiums in Slalom events.
       I believe Shiffrin does have the ability to be one of the best this sport has seen, and I quickly realized that in her first race she ever finished on the podium in Lienz, Austria back in December of 2011. After losing he shin guard midway through her first run, she was able to salvage the run for 12th place. Her second and final run was the moment that I knew. She simply charged hard that final run, able to take risks wherever she saw fit. Her second run time was the fastest of all the competitors, and it was good enough to propel her from 12th place overall, all the way onto the podium in 3rd.
      Nearly one year later, Shiffrin garnered her first career win in Are, Sweden. Since that race, she has been unstoppable winning three out of four World Cup Slalom events. She is now the leader for the World Cup Slalom events with a comfortable 81 point lead with three more Slalom events. Due to her recent surge in wins, she now finds herself sitting in 5th overall in total points on the World Cup circuit. While Tina Maze and Marie Hoffel-Riesch has a comfortable lead of her, I do not think it is out of question to see Shiffrin finish in the top 3 overall in points.
      At this stage in Shiffrin's career it is quite evident that she is still thriving on being a very technical skier and has specialized predominantly in Slalom events. However, she is now greatly improved in the Giant Slalom and is consistently finishing inside the top 10. I believe she will continue to improve in these events and make the eventual transition into more speed oriented events (Super G, Downhill), while maintaining the strong technical background that she already possesses.
      While it is too early yet to say definitively that she is the future of the US Ski team or that she will be the greatest American ski racer ever, what I do know is that it is all about living in the moment and that is certainly what it appears Shiffrin is doing right now. As she continues to focus on the race at hand, especially in the technical events (Slalom, Giant Slalom), the wins and podiums finishes will continue to add up.

 

Thank you for making this World Cup season enjoyable to watch Mikaela! 

Last Weekend at Whiteface, Lake Placid, NY

Finding some hidden gems at Whiteface last weekend January 5-6, 2013. The tight tree skiing, steep terrain and hidden stashes that are abundant at this mountain are the reasons I consider Whiteface to be one of the best mountains on the East Coast. Unfortunately we missed the opening of the Slides by a day, but the conditions were uncharacteristically good for Whiteface so we were more than thrilled with that.

Rising Star: Kelly Sildaru

     Kelly Sildaru, hailing from Estonia, has been widely covered by ski websites and blogs for the past year or so now. We all are anxiously waiting for the day the XGames finally sends this young phenom the invite to compete in the slope style event at either Aspen of Tignes. Check out her 2012 season edit, that was just released this week, where she is laying down switch 9s. She's not even 11 years old yet! But she is quickly moving up the ranks as a force in the sport. Give her a few years and she is going to being standing atop the podium of some of the biggest competitions in freeskiing.

Check out her 2012 Season Edit HERE

Freeride World Tour Set to Kickoff Today at Revelstoke

The Swatch Freeride World Tour will kickoff today at 9am PST (12pm EST) on the Mackenzie Face of Revelstoke Resort in Revelstoke, B.C. After a storm delayed the start for several days, today's event should have some of the best conditions the tour has seen in recent years. You can watch it streamed live HERE. This is definitely a must watch event for any avid skier. Some many heavy hitting big mountain skiers all at one venue always creates for some great action. Watch for Griffin Post, Drew Tabke, and Mad River Glen native Silas Chickering-Ayers.

Once again you can watch it live here.

Bonus:
Check out Kevin Guri's epic fall last year at this event. I was completely dumbfounded that he was able to walk away from this unscathed.

Vital Films Presents Days to Come

Vital Films released a 6 minute feature film today, "Days to Come", staring Torin Yater Wallace, Gus Kenworthy, Jacob Wester and Aidan Sheahan. This film is shot completely in Aspen primarily highlighting Buttermilk. If this film doesn't get you psyched for the XGames in 2 weeks then I don't know what will.

 Video Here

First Tracks at the Wissahickon Ski Club

After getting a late start to the season last weekend in Vermont, this past weekend I was able to log two more days at the Wissahickon Ski Club, a small private 400 vertical mountain outside Philadelphia, PA. It was the first time I was able to get in some runs there since the 2010-2011 winter due to the awfully mild winter we had last year. Needless to say I was more than ecstatic to finally get back on 'the hill'. Didn't want to wait for the lift to get running so I hiked it a few times to get those first tracks. A fresh 4 inches skied shockingly well over the soft and rock laden with rocks. Thank god for rock skis! Here's a quick edit.

Looking ahead, next weekend I'll be shredding Whiteface Mountain, NY