Copper Mountain – His friends called him crazy for working the outdoor water ramp during Australia’s coldest months. But Jon Olsson needed a new trick.
“But after two, three weeks on the water ramp, I got it,” said the Swede skiing superstar.
“It” is the Kangaroo Flip – a double backflip with an off-axis 540-degree rotation to a switch landing – and itdelivered the perennially bronzed sultan of smooth skiing his first gold slopestyle medal at the U.S. Freeskiing Open on Friday at Copper Mountain.
On each of his qualifying runs through a series of tabletop jumps into a railyard, Olsson upped his competitor’s train of varied 900-degree spins with his untouchable Kangaroo Flip. His buttery-smooth catlike landings whispered, compared to the rifle-crack of competitors.
Olsson has earned Freeskiing Open silver three times and bronze twice since the jib ski world’s Super Bowl debuted in 2000. He’s got a trio of X Games bronze, too. The graceful 24-year-old was uncharacteristically giddy with gold.
“I’ve stood here so many times in the past, thinking I had and then didn’t,” he said. “This is so awesome.”
Olsson hopes the Kangaroo Flip will help short circuit the nearly ubiquitous 1080s that dominate slopestyle today.
“At the X Games last year, everyone was doing a switch 1080 and I thought, ‘How can I get an edge on these guys?’ I realized I needed a new trick,” he said. “I wanted something really different that would break out of the old 10 rut.”
Olsson led a Scandinavian sweep at the open’s slopestyle spinfest. Fellow Norwegian and relative unknown PK Hunder took silver with ridiculously large airs and smooth style on the rails, followed by Norway’s Andreas Hatveit.
Among the women, newcomer Anna Segal – an Aussie training in Aspen – busted out a rare inverted spin to sneak a win past California jib queens Michelle Parker (silver) and Kristi Leskinen (bronze).
Quebecker Charles Gagnier’s solid 1260s bested Swede Jackub Wester’s super-styled double backflip with a 900-degree rotation to take the open’s Big Air title under the lights Saturday night. The X Games medalist stomped his 12s for gold on the big-but-not-biggest Big Air booter, forcing Wester’s innovative and smooth inverted 9 to silver. Big Air defending champion T.J. Schiller lost his switch 1080 battle for third to Sammy Carslon, whose double-grab 10s were flawless.
Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
