Winter X games just finished on Sunday. Some of you watched it. A lot of you watched the highlights on SportsCenter, possibly even rewound some of the dirtier spins and flips just to try and comprehend what the fuck they were doing. And the rest of you probably scoffed and went up to get a beer as you waited for basketball and hockey highlights.
For those of you in the third category I can only feel pity. Not only because you’re missing the most exciting, artistic, and captivating athletes performing today but also because of the fact that in 50 years these sports will be dominating the airwaves while MLB and NBA desperately struggle to come up with gimmicks that’ll bring in enough money to cover their disgustingly bloated player contracts. You wanna be able to talk to your grandkids about how their favorite sports were back in your day? Then you better start watching the X Games.
First off, in full disclosure I have to admit I didn't like watching organized sports growing up. It never made sense, watching a bunch of dudes run around in this arbitrary square. I'd rather be doing something myself. It never inspired anything in me like the adrenaline rush I get from watching a snow or surf flick. Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that I grew up in Baltimore, without a football team and with a baseball team who, even during its glory days, was never gonna win a world series (Why not?). Or maybe because I was one of the new mutants, the kids coming up on punk rock skate videos and MTV's attention-span-erasing in your face visuals. Maybe it was because I was too pale to go to my local basketball court in downtown Baltimore but I could skate around Fells Point with a freedom most kids only dream of, a new urban warrior practicing his acid drops and tic-tacs back in the dawn of the new era. Whatever the reason, I admit I've never been able to spend all Sunday watching football - or more than 5 minutes watching a televised baseball game. Still, maybe that's even more of a reason why these new sports are the way of the future. Maybe I'm not a freak but a hint of what's to come. I mean, hell, how many reality shows are there about baseball players? There've already been 2 about skaters, 1 about surfers, and there's gonna be one about snowboarders coming down the pipeline - and that doesn't count all the shows on FuelTV. If MTV defines youth culture, then you have either unscripted shows about wild kids (drinking or having babies) or extreme sports athletes (anything by Jeff Tremaine).
First off, in full disclosure I have to admit I didn't like watching organized sports growing up. It never made sense, watching a bunch of dudes run around in this arbitrary square. I'd rather be doing something myself. It never inspired anything in me like the adrenaline rush I get from watching a snow or surf flick. Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that I grew up in Baltimore, without a football team and with a baseball team who, even during its glory days, was never gonna win a world series (Why not?). Or maybe because I was one of the new mutants, the kids coming up on punk rock skate videos and MTV's attention-span-erasing in your face visuals. Maybe it was because I was too pale to go to my local basketball court in downtown Baltimore but I could skate around Fells Point with a freedom most kids only dream of, a new urban warrior practicing his acid drops and tic-tacs back in the dawn of the new era. Whatever the reason, I admit I've never been able to spend all Sunday watching football - or more than 5 minutes watching a televised baseball game. Still, maybe that's even more of a reason why these new sports are the way of the future. Maybe I'm not a freak but a hint of what's to come. I mean, hell, how many reality shows are there about baseball players? There've already been 2 about skaters, 1 about surfers, and there's gonna be one about snowboarders coming down the pipeline - and that doesn't count all the shows on FuelTV. If MTV defines youth culture, then you have either unscripted shows about wild kids (drinking or having babies) or extreme sports athletes (anything by Jeff Tremaine).
Now I’ve already rambled on so many times about how these sports are the future, about how they’re combining culture, lifestyle, and art with athleticism so I won’t go into that again here. For you standard sports fans, in case you missed it, here’s a quick rundown of a few select wins in a standard “Sports world” way. If you caught the Games but feel like reading a quick recap with that Ariano color commentary special sauce, read on. But if you're looking for the part about how these sports are evolving into something new, blazing a path towards the future, check here for part 2.
Though seriously, these vids below are pretty sick.
SLOPESTYLE
Tom Wallisch killed it in skier Slopestyle.
Mark McMorris killed it in snowboard slopestyle, though Sage Kotsenburg, the silver medalist, was pretty sick as well. In the end, it came down to McMorris’ rail section, much more technical and difficult than Sage’s.
Pay attention, this is an event that will be featured prominently in the 2014 Winter Olympics given all the hype and attention lavished on “The Flying Tomato” (and yes, that’s the lamest nickname any suit-wearing geek with a headset EVER came up with).
Slopestyle is my favorite XGames event because it combines so many elements. First off they have the street jibs, rails and wallrides which emphasize exact balance – your board or skis need to be perfectly in line with the rail or wall or else it’s like trying to balance on a knife wearing ice skates. The secret is learning to let go while sliding, let your motion and speed going onto the feature carry you through, with a final pop off the end allowing you to throw in a little special steeze. Next come the “aerials”, the jump section with guys flying between 60 and 100 feet spinning in unbelievable off-axis rotations and then flawlessly landing back on their feet.
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| $$$ THE MONEY BOOTER $$$ |
At the bottom is the money-booter, where people like Tom Wallisch throw switch leftside double cork 1260’s (his run set the new record, by the way - and to explain, a 1260 is 3 and a half full rotations, a full rotation being a 360, 360 degrees, so on ...). A few years ago Shaun White won by giving a clinic, spinning every possible 900 off each of the four jumps (take off regular, do 2 and a half rotations spinning one way, which leads to a blind landing, switch; take off switch, reverse it, so on . . .). Basically, this is an event that’s only as limited as your imagination and the rail part changes every year so evolution is forced on at least one section. Imagine how much more interesting baseball would be if first base was moved from game to game? Now imagine if Ozzie Smith had implemented rules that baseball players had to do flips between bases like he did. Then imagine if the goal was to get between the bases with the most style, not to just hammer a ball away? Perhaps then it wouldn’t be filled with overweight “athletes”, right? No, then it wouldn’t be baseball. Still, it might do a better job keeping the kids interested enough for them to make it through a game with you without whining about how slow and boring the damn thing is.
SNOWMOBILE BIG AIR
Then there was snowmobile big air. I remember seeing Jim Rippey bust a backflip in Standard Films’ TB10. That was 2001. And on Sunday, Heath Frisby landed the first ever frontflip.
Just imagine a couple-hundred ton gasoline powered death machine. Then imagine somehow pushing it counter to the direction in which it’s traveling. Then imagine landing it completely blind, just having to sense where the ground is under you. Yeah, that’s what he did. In the run just before, his buddy Justin Hoyer, attempting a double backflip (which was landed previously by Levi Lavallee) under-rotated and slid down the hill with the smoking hunk of metal on top of him.
Imagine if your sport involved manipulating a dead piece of metal while 6 stories in the air with the very real chance of death or serious injury literally in every play. Makes football sound kinda soft, right?
BIG AIR
Then snowboard and skier big air. Bobby Brown killed it on his skis, taking the gold back (he won it 2 years ago).
and Mark McMorris won this one too with a TRIPLE cork 1440 (and you thought that double cork was dangerous), making him 2 for 2 in X Games gold.
Big air is like the NBA All-Star dunk contest. Except all the players are closer to Spud Webb height. And instead of going 3 or 4 feet in the air and spinning around once they go hundreds of feet in the air and spin 3 or 4 times, while flipping concurrently. And instead of landing on their feet they land on slick pieces of wood and resin latched onto their feet. And seriously, when was the last time you saw anything truly new and innovative in the dunk contest, the East Bay Funk Dunk? No, instead of bouncing the ball off the backboard they’re grabbing and spinning their legs while flying through the air in said impossible acrobatic feats.
Now, let’s get to the sports in the Olympics.
SkierX and BoarderX – not my cup of tea.
They’re races. Rowdy races but races, nonetheless. I think they lack the creativity and the push for innovation inherent in the other sports and it’ll be surprising if they remain in the XGames ad infinitum. And if they do, they’ll certainly be joined by this, which is much more extreme.
Actually Monoski’s pretty fucking sick. Watch Sam Danniels, a wildman if ever I've seen one, kill it to take the gold this year.
But the others – as freestyle ski legend Tanner Hall once said about downhill skiing (which he did before becoming the freeskiing king he is - and I think this was directed at 2-plank drunk douchebag Bode Miller ) it’s one thing to fly downhill at 60 MPH. It’s another to take that speed and then huck yourself several hundred feet in the air, flying around in a goddamn atomic tornado and somehow maintaining your composure to land flawlessly.
Still, SkierX/BoarderX are INFINITELY more entertaining than any track or pool race. Sorry Phelps.
HALFPIPE
This is the big one. Ever since a spunky little red-head channeled Robert Plant in tight black leather and threw down the most insane pipe run anybody has ever seen during his VICTORY LAP in the 2010 Olympics, Halfpipe has been touted as the great crossover hope, the place where snowboarders and main-streamers can finally begin to bridge the gap in understanding that has for so long existed between them.
Let’s start off by saying there is nothing scarier or burlier than a snowboard halfpipe. With 20-foot walls of unforgiving ice rising on either side of you, you can seriously fuck yourself up on the pipe (see SarahBurke and Kevin Pearce). I’d rather huck my meat off a 30-foot cliff than session a halfpipe and one of my friends, a pro skier and former US National Team member, comfortable spinning inverted 540’s in the middle of a mogul field, stays away from them “Either you pop too much one way and slam on the deck or too much the other wall and you fall 10 feet to flat.” As such, I hold these athletes in utmost respect.
Let’s start off by saying there is nothing scarier or burlier than a snowboard halfpipe. With 20-foot walls of unforgiving ice rising on either side of you, you can seriously fuck yourself up on the pipe (see SarahBurke and Kevin Pearce). I’d rather huck my meat off a 30-foot cliff than session a halfpipe and one of my friends, a pro skier and former US National Team member, comfortable spinning inverted 540’s in the middle of a mogul field, stays away from them “Either you pop too much one way and slam on the deck or too much the other wall and you fall 10 feet to flat.” As such, I hold these athletes in utmost respect.
Of course the thread running through these games was that everything was being done in honor and remembrance of Sarah Burke, even to the opening celebration held in her honor through the pipe.
As such, it was fitting that Women’s Skier Superpipe was won by none other than her longtime friend and Team Canada teammate Roz Groenewoud, “Sarah” in red cursive emblazoned across her forehead. This is as moving and emotional as an athletics victory can be, winning by setting a new record in honor of your best friend who had single-handedly pushed your very sport forward and into the international spotlight.
In Skier men’s, young rookie David Wise nailed his run, bringing the Gold back to America for the first time since Tanner Hall in 2008, setting the groundwork for what will be a mind-blowing Winter Olympics in Sochi as Men’s skier pipe takes front and center. Skiers, having less surface area and twice as many edges as snowboarders, (and ergo twice as much control and ability to regulate speed) bust huge and hugely complex airs. This will be the new “It” sport of the next Winter Olympics, I guarantee it.
On boards, Kelly Clark won, like, her 100th XGames medal, this time another gold.
And then it’s time for the big show. I remember the first time I went to the Winter X Games in Aspen, back in 2002. This little punk named Shaun White was 16 and blowing my mind. I was there cheering for Danny Kass. Neither Kass or the little punk kid did a damn thing. The next year, White would win gold in both Slopestyle and Pipe. And go on to change the world of extreme sports.
On Sunday he made history again, scoring the first ever perfect score in the history of Snowboard Pipe, a 100, on his victory lap, of course, with back to back double corks and a 1260 Big Mac (that mind-boggling spin-flip he threw in the Olympics).
I have to give credit not to White for winning but for everybody else who come out knowing they’re gonna lose. And to Iouri Podlatchikov, the 2nd place finisher, who busts a switch double McTwist (the Big Mac) and has the epic nickname I-Pod.
But of Course White won, looking ever like the rock star and I can’t take credit away from him, he is the best Pipe-riding snowboarder in the universe. So if he's the here and the now, where the fuck are we going? We're going beyond the limits, where there are no roads . . .
To be continued in "The Future of Athletics is X-Rated, Part 2: Innovation and Revolution"
- Ryan
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