Snowboarders Resist Making Big Air All About the Latest Trick

[-DarkJesús-]

 

Mark McMorris of Canada hit a backside triple cork 1440 in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event at the 2016 Winter X Games last January in Aspen, Colo. 

 

It was a shot across the bow, and the snowboarder Billy Morgan played the part of cannonball, wearing all black while tucking and somersaulting through the air more than 100 feet from a specially constructed jump made of snow at a resort in Livigno, Italy.

This was in April 2015, when Morgan, of Britain, landed a backside quadruple cork 1800, a marvel of physics and rotational forces consisting of four off-axis back flips and six spins compressed into three seconds of hang time.

Video of Morgan somersaulting through the air went viral on social media. No snowboarder had ever landed a quadruple flip, and it signaled an escalation in the difficulty of maneuvers leading up to the debut of big air, the newest snowboarding discipline at the Winter Olympics next year.

Within seven months, two more riders — Max Parrot, of Canada, and Marcus Kleveland, of Norway — landed their own versions of a quad cork for cameras. But blowback was just as swift, reviving decades-old discussion in the sport about a so-called spin-to-win mentality versus riding with style, pitting the influence of the Olympics against sensibilities among core snowboarders, who say an emphasis on acrobatics conjures diving, aerial skiing and figure skating.

“Two years ago, that’s what people were starting to do, but it’s kind of fallen out because of people hating on it — because it wasn’t stylish,” Ryan Stassel of Alaska, a member of the United States snowboarding team, said about quad corks.

 

Danny Davis took a practice run on Wednesday for the Winter X Games superpipe in Aspen.

 

Stassel competes in big air and slopestyle disciplines, and has never landed a quad cork. He said that he and other competitors have focused on difficult moves they can land more smoothly and easily, like triple corks and 1620s — four-and-a-half spins — and judges have tended to reward them.

For now, no one has landed a quad in competition. All that could change this week at the Winter X Games in Aspen when the men’s snowboard big air finals are held on a straight jump that will launch riders 100 feet from Buttermilk Mountain on Friday night.

“There’s a big chance we see a quadruple cork in X Games this year,” said Parrot, 22, a winner of two gold medals in big air at the X Games and a favorite to make the slopestyle and big air teams for Canada at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next year. “Somebody is going to do it this year. Either me or someone else.”

Last year, Parrot discussed attempting a quad cork, but did not need the maneuver to win gold at the X Games. His two tricks in the final, a triple cork and a 1620, were enough to finish with the highest score. This year, the field includes Kleveland, but not Morgan.

 

If a rider attempts a quad, the trick will be doing so with grace.

In a segment for ESPN’s “Sport Science,” the host, John Brenkus, demonstrated how Parrot’s quad flip required approaching a jump at more than 50 miles an hour, and generated four g’s of centripetal acceleration while spinning — equivalent to the most extreme amusement park rides — and resulted in a half-ton of force upon landing.

 

Max Parrot of Canada competing in the Snowboard World Cup in November in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

 

“A bigger spin, say, an 1800, you have to throw it so hard, and get the grab and hold, that you don’t have as much time to put your style, or personal stamp, on the trick,” Mike Jankowski, the head coach of the United States snowboarding team, said. “The best riders will stand out having that unique personal stamp on the trick.”

To prevent big air from favoring one-hit wonders, or simply becoming a duel of quad corks, the format in the final at the X Games and the Olympics requires that riders land two different tricks.

“You have to have variety,” Jankowski said. “It can’t be somebody who has one crazy trick one way that’s going to win. You’re going to have to try to show versatility in your riding.”

Chris Gunnarson is the founder and president of Snow Park Technologies, a company based in Nevada that builds the jumps and courses at Winter X Games. He is also on the X Games organizing committee for snowboarding, overseeing judging, competition formats and athlete invitations.

“Trying to come up with compelling formats for big air is kind of where the sport needs to be right now,” Gunnarson said. “I hate to compare it to figure skating or high diving, but you get to a point where the sport has kind of reached a peak, where you have the hardest trick at the moment, and a handful of people can do it, and you kind of see that trick over and over until someone like Marcus Kleveland or Max Parrot comes up with a trick that’s just a little bit more technically difficult, and all of a sudden that’s going to be the new benchmark.”

 

In December, Gunnarson oversaw an experiment with fresh course design and formats, including a team component, at Dew Tour, in Breckenridge, Colo., an event put on by the Enthusiastic Network, owner of Surfer and TransWorld Skateboarding magazines. The changes were designed to cajole the riders creatively.

The Dew Tour and X Games build their big air jumps entirely of snow at a time when other events have begun to erect them with scaffolding, creating a kind of standard in a sport that prizes novelty.

“No two jumps are ever totally identical, although some of the scaffold jumps are starting to get to that point where they are always exactly the same where it’s going to end up being like freestyle aerials or something,” Gunnarson said.

In November, a World Cup big air test event in Pyeongchang provided a compromise. Held on a hybrid of scaffolding and a jump and landing sculpted from snow, the competition gave a glimpse of what to expect at the Olympics.

Parrot came in second, and Mark McMorris of Canada won with a backside triple cork 1440 indy and a frontside triple cork 1440 mute. Missing? A quad cork.

“I was actually surprised we didn’t see any,” Stassel, who came in third, said.

“It could be strategy,” he allowed. “If someone threw it, that’s what everyone would have to learn.”