COPPER MOUNTAIN — To all but the sport’s most ardent fans, the discipline known as superpipe skiing can qualify as a confusing conundrum, a Rubik’s Cube of skis, poles and appendages somehow combined to determine a score.
Somewhere within the contortion of spins, flips, grabs and twists lies a method. When the mystery is unlocked and pieces fall magically into place, suddenly it all seems to make sense. Yet in an instant it all can change.
Nowhere is that kaleidoscopic reality more evident than at the U.S. Freeskiing Open, a petri dish for progression in the stunt ditch that saw its 12th edition evolve Saturday in Copper Mountain’s Main Vein Superpipe. Since its inception in 1997, the Open has established the boundaries of the sport.
The world’s best superpipe skiers — from originators like J.F. Cusson to innovators like Simon Dumont — got their start skiing for scores at the Open. But while the sport has made undeniable advancements in skill and style over the course of a dozen years, the question lingers: How much freedom can remain in freeskiing when a panel of judges ultimately determines its outcome?
“I feel like judging alone can dictate the whole direction of the sport,” Dumont said Saturday. “We are going to do whatever it takes to win. So if a judge likes something at one event, you’re going to bring it to the next event and try it out. Judges really have a lot of power to really push the sport in the right direction or not push it in the right direction.”
Dumont, a multiple X Games medalist who has never finished better than third at the Freeskiing Open, is among a legion of competitors currently attempting to move their sport forward in a manner never attempted before. We’re not talking 1440s and inverted alley-oop aerials here, though. For the recently formed Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP), it’s all about establishing some consistency in an often impulsive arena.
“We just realized our sport needed a little more structure, so we started the AFP and hopefully can take control of it,” said Dumont, who sits on a board dedicated to establishing everything from judging criteria to superpipe standards. “We need more sophistication within our sport. We need an association so that when the Olympics do come, if they come, we’ll be able to say, ‘These are our standards. If you want us in your event, we’re going to keep our creativity, we’re going to keep our core sport the way we want it.’ ”
Among the stiffest challenges facing this new-school crew of cat-herders is keeping the competitors and those keeping score on the same page in a sport that prides itself on progression and originality. It was champion Justin Dorey’s double backflip that caught everyone’s eye Saturday. But how does a judge determine that trick’s worth over, say, a switch offside 1080? Who is most responsible for moving the sport forward or, for that matter, determining what forward is?
“I think it does it by itself,” said Cusson, already an elder statesman among judges at age 31. “We’re just the eyes of the sport. From competition to competition we always see new tricks, a little more style.”
With the critical eye of a recent competitor, Steele Spence of Aspen believes it’s up to judges like him to help shape the sport.
“I’m still doing a lot of the tricks for filming segments, so I’ve got a good sense of how difficult everything is from personal experience in the recent past,” said Spence, 25. “The six of us (judges) have a better sense than just about anyone of what’s the right direction for the sport. We can see the connection, the step to step between what the judging panel started and what the kids are doing today.”
Still, about the only thing everyone agrees upon is the reality that freeskiing remains a moving target. And ultimately everyone has their interpretation of how to hit a bull’s-eye.
“The biggest motivating factor for me is just to do something different, kind of try and mix it up from what is normally seen at pipe comps. That’s why I’m so excited about skiing halfpipe right now is that I feel like there’s a lot of room for creativity,” said Breckenridge team rider Duncan Adams, 16. “I always say I don’t focus on skiing for the judges. I’ve got certain tricks I want to do and I’ve got my own ideas, so I’m really just skiing for myself.”
