The morning started with a fresh blanket of white on the ground here at Copper Mountain, and it is still snowing. It wasn’t coming down too hard during warm-ups, but high wind gusts and flat light are not a great combination for skiing pipe. Many of these athletes have competed in worse conditions and can handle the weather, but it’s still tough to ski to your best ability when conditions aren’t necessarily on your side.
“It’s kind of a roll of dice when you’re dropping in,” Canadian team skier Brendan Mackay says. “When you have adverse weather like this, it kind of levels the playing field a little bit, keeps it entertaining and keeps you on your toes. Sometimes you get unlucky and drop when a wave of wind really picks up, and that’s when it gets a little dangerous. The team at Copper did an amazing job with clearing the pipe for us.”
Winds did pick up after warm-ups, and visibility came and went, complicating the first run. We are likely to see a more technical level of skiing during finals, but some tricks that sat well with the judges included a right dub 12 safety and a switch left bone roll blunt by Canadian Noah Bowman. This kept him in the top spot until David Wise laid down a left dub 12 mute and a left 9 tail shifty, there was only one right side spin, but his amplitude kept up all the way down the pipe. The visibility increased significantly by the second run, and generally brought up the level of skiing sans a few crashes. Lyman Currier put down a left dub 14 on his second run that was sick, and Dylan Maineau did a massive dub flat 9 with a safety. Everyone played it pretty safe their first run with the weather, and Brenden Mackay and Birk Irving were the only ones who used their second run to secure a higher position on the ranking and get a spot in the finals.
Those who will move on to finals are David Wise, Nico Porteous, Brenden Mackay, Lyman Currier, Aaron Blunk, Alex Ferreira, Simon D’Artois, Hunter Hess, and Birk Irving.
This was one more step in determining who we will see at the Olympics in Beijing come February. This builds excitement for those who made the cut for finals, as this will be the second of five total Olympic qualifying events. Brendan Mackay describes the best way to work around the pressure of making it to the games, “I try to ignore it and think about how I want to ski, try not to focus on what other people are doing or what the scores are looking like. If I put down a run I’m stoked on, then I can start watching other people and feeding off that, but until then I am just trying to focus on myself, have fun, and put down a run I’m happy with. That’s not to say it isn’t always on the back of your mind.” Clearly, this method worked out well for Mackay, as he landed a third-place position going into the finals.
Men’s Qualifying Results Superpipe Presented by Toyota
1.) David Wise (USA), 93.50
2.) Noah Bowman (CAN), 91.50
3.) Nico Porteous (NZL), 91.00
4.) Brendan Mackay (CAN), 90.75
5.) Lyman Currier (USA), 88.75
6.) Aaron Blunck (USA), 86.75
7.) Alex Ferreira (USA), 85.50
8.) Simon D’Artois (CAN), 85.00
9.) Hunter Hess (USA), 80.50
10.) Birk Irving (USA), 79.00
11.) Ben Harrington (NZL), 71.00
12.) Evan Marineau (CAN), 69.50
13.) Dylan Marineau (CAN), 68.00
14.) Miguel Porteous (NZL), 65.50
15.) Samson Schuiling (USA), 63.25
16.) Dylan Ladd (USA), 59.00
17.) Jaxin Hoerter (USA), 56.25
18.) Hunter Carey (USA), 49.75
19.) Kevin Rolland (FRA), 47.25
20.) Binghan He (CHN), 44.75
21.) Bingqiang Mao (CHN), 41.50
22.) Jingbo Sun (CHN), 30.25
23.) Cassidy Jarell (USA), 27.75
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