Despite all the twists, turns and aerial acrobatics, the final results of Saturday’s Dumont Cup was a simple flip in the standings.  Nick Goepper took the top spot for the second time in three years. Gus Kenworthy, last year’s winner, finished second. Josh Christensen took third for the second year in a row.

An Indiana native, Nick won the day with a final score of 95, giving him two of the best scores of the afternoon. He posted a 93 in his first of three runs.

“It’s awesome to win,” said Goepper, who was fourth in 2010 and has been in the top two every year since. “It’s more of a mellow and relaxed vibe than all the other ones. It’s springtime. It’s usually pretty sunny. You have soft, slushy snow. The New England crowd comes out. So that makes it a little more mellow than some of the bigger contests, but it’s still a platinum event. It still carries a lot of weight. It’s still great to have these grassroots events on the East Coast.”

Goepper is coming off a strong rookie season in 2012. He won a silver in the Winter X Games and won a slopestyle event on the Winter Dew Tour in Utah. He was an amateur when he won the event in 2011.

Kenworthy has had a multitude of podium finishes and was one of only two skiers to compete in three divisions in the Winter X Games in 2012, reaching the finals in two of them. He won the North Face Open in Canada in a superpipe event last year. His other pro wins include a pair of wins in the New Zealand Winter Games in 2011, both the slopestyle and superpipe.

After semifinals in the morning, the field was narrowed for the afternoon’s finals. Goepper upped the ante right away with a 92 on his first run.

“I was looking for something I could land for sure and get all my grabs,” said Goepper. “Then I left room to step it up.”

Kenworthy was a close second after the first run. He had posted a 92 while Christensen had a 91.

“The second run I tried to step it up by adding a right side double,” said Kenworthy, who had a pair of doubles on the final two jumps but couldn’t top the 93. “It was a little sloppy though, and it wasn’t enough.”

Christensen earned a 91.7 on his third jump. Goepper followed with a strong effort on his final try.

“I tried to step it up on my second run, and I wasn’t successful,” said Goepper, who crashed on the final jump on his second run. “Then I stepped it up on my third run.”

He added a 1260 and a different rotation to his repertoire on the final effort and scored a 95.

“I was so happy,” said Goepper. “I didn’t know what the judges were going to do. I’m stoked that I got a 95.”

Kenworthy heard the announcement of Goepper’s score just before his final run. On his third effort, Kenworthy had hoped for his best attempt, but a slip on the landing on the second jump changed that. He finished with a 92.7.  “I was going to try to dump out a triple on the last jump, but I landed really sloppy on the second jump,” said Kenworthy. “So I decided to bail.”

Kenworthy won last year’s event with a 96. Goepper had taken second with 94.

“I knew he had a 95,” said Kenworthy. “Even without that score, it would have been hard to overtake him without doing something crazy. That was the plan, but it didn’t work out. Ninety-five’s a pretty good score. It’s as high as you could ever get. Ninety-seven is as good as you could expect to get. So I knew it would be hard to beat him.”

The slushy course made landing a challenge at times. A number of the competitors wiped out, nixing any hopes of a high score.

Goepper, Kenworthy and Christensen were part of a group of a dozen professional skiers and nearly 80 amateur skiers who came to Maine for the largest freeskiing event on the East Coast, and the only platinum-level slopestyle event recognized by the Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP).

The Dumont Cup was founded by X Games gold medalist and 2014 Olympic hopeful Simon Dumont of Bethel.

Nick Goepper skied incredibly well taking first place with a k-fed on the down rail, a 360 switch up from the up rail to the rainbow, switch 900 mute over the small gap jump, a misty 450 off the flat rail, a switch double rodeo 1080 tail grab on the first big jump and finished off with a massive switch double misty 1260 mute grab. A perfect run with no error whatsoever.
In second place was James Woods, who managed to sneak onto the podium on his last run, which included a massive left double 1080 into an awesome right double 1260 truck driver.

Third place surprise went to McRae Williams, who stomped both left and right switch double 1080s in his run and was super stoked to podium.

http://freeski.downdays.eu/news/02/03/2013/nick-goepper-dominates-the-austrian-freeski-open/

Sports Illustrated: Inside Olympic Sports

Just as organizers are using the Sochi Olympics to project the face of a new Russia to the world, the IOC is doing the same for the Winter Olympics program. In an attempt to make Winter Games younger, hipper, edgier and more robust, the IOC approved the addition of 12 new Olympic events, eight of which have ties to the X Games. The additional events increase the program to 15 sports with 98 medal events — 69 in the mountains and 29 ice events in the area’s coastal cluster that will feature ice sports. These will not be your Uncle Knut’s Winter Olympics. The new events include the following:

Luge team relay

Sliders become slappers as two singles lugers (one man and one woman) and one doubles team trip touch pads to open gates for teammates after completing legs of a quirky luge relay. A team’s time will be recorded after its third sled has crossed a finish line. German sliders have won gold medals at nine straight world championships dating back to 2000.

Freeskiing slopestyle (men and women)

The hybrid slopestyle event combines the liftoff skills of aerialists and skateboarders with the downhill speed of an alpine skier. Each competition is judged based on tracks executed on jumps and rails while skiing on a downhill course.

Freeskiing halfpipe (men and women)

Think of a halfpipe event on skis instead of snowboards (two routines of flips, twists and jumps) and there you have it. Each skier receives two runs in the preliminaries in order to qualify for the finals by virtue of the highest score for one run. In the finals, 12 skiers complete two runs with the highest score for one run determining the winners.

Snowboard slopestyle (Men and women)

See ski slopestyle and replace the skis with a board. The flying tomato Shaun White is an ace and X Games champion in the event.

Snowboard parallel special slalom (men and women)

This is a slopestyle event for two athletes racing side-by-side down identical parallel courses with identical obstacles. The athlete who reaches the bottom first without wrecking wins.

Biathlon mixed relay

Already popular at events in Europe, the mixed relay will include two females per team racing six-kilometer legs followed by two males racing 7.5-kilometer legs. Each athlete will fire one prone and one standing shot and must ski a penalty lap of 150 meters for each miss. The winning team will have the lowest combined time of the four legs.

Women’s ski jumping

No group lobbied more vocally for Olympic inclusion than this one. The women will contest one individual event on the hill on which the men compete in the normal event. The highest combined score (distance + style points) for two jumps wins. U.S. jumper Lindsey Van — not to be confused with Vonn — was world champ in 2009. Teammate Sarah Hendrickson was world cup leader in 2011-12.

Figure skating team event

Judges will combine scores from performances by one entry per country from each of the four classifications: men’s, ladies’, pairs and dance. The competition, held over three days, will take place before the opening ceremony, extending the Games’ program to 20 days. The event made its debut at the 2012 Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck where skaters from different nations formed joint teams.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/-olympics/news/20130207/sochi-olympics-one-year-out-new-events/

ASPEN, CO (Jan. 27) – Nick Goepper (Lawrenceburg, IN) was huge on the jumps and smooth and clean technically as he soared to X Games gold in slopestyle skiing Sunday. Goepper nailed a 94 on his second of three runs to take the victory. Norway’s Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen won the women’s title with Ashley Battersby (Park City, UT) the top American in fourth.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Nick Goepper (Lawrenceburg, IN) soared to X Games gold winning slopestyle on Sunday.
• Goepper’s second of three runs was a 94 featuring a switched double 1080 Japan and a switch right double misty 1260 mute grab.
• He was the only American to medal. Bobby Brown (Breckenridge, CO) was sixth and Alex Schlopy (Park City, UT) seventh.

QUOTES
Nick Goepper
It feels absolute amazing, I’ve been dreaming of this moment from when I was a little kid. I just got off the phone with my mom and she reminded me of when I said that I wanted to win the X Games when I was small. It’s great to be here with these rad guys.

Anyone could have won this contest, watching everyone drop in was nerve wracking, i swear i almost peed my pants several times! I felt super good, my skis were running fast and I was visualizing my runs with smooth grabs and clean landings. It was one of the best courses I have ever hit, the staff did such a good job keeping everything clean and smooth. This was a great contest.

I’m really looking forward to the Olympic test event in Russia next. It’ll be cool to check out the Olympic venue.

http://ussnowboarding.com/news/goepper-takes-dominating-x-slope-win

ASPEN, Colo. — Nick Goepper earned the biggest win of his young career Sunday at X Games Aspen, taking gold in Ski Slopestyle a year after being relegated to silver on the final run of the day.

Goepper, 18, who grew up skiing a 400-foot hill in rural Indiana, held off four other skiers who broke 90 points. His third-run score of 94.00 was the winner, and it prolonged one of the quirkiest streaks in recent X Games history: nine skiers have now won Slopestyle gold in the past nine years.

“It was nerve racking,” Goepper said of waiting to see if his score would hold up. “I was wiping the sweat off my brow every time. I think I almost peed my pants, I was so nervous.”

Later, he added: “I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a little kid. I just got off the phone with my mom and she said, ‘Remember when you were really young and you said I want to win the X Games?’ And she said, ‘I never thought it would happen. And now you’re here.’ It’s the best day of my life.”

Sweden’s Henrik Harlaut, who made freeskiing history Saturday night with a nose butter triple cork 1620 that clinched gold in Big Air, earned his second medal in 16 hours with silver on Sunday. He finished his third run with a nose butter double cork 1260 that helped him earn a 92.66, just enough to surpass X Games rookie James Woods of Great Britain (92.00 on his third run).

“I wanted this super bad,” said Woods, who qualified No. 1. “I messed up on the last jump so I’m disappointed in myself, but still happy to have a bronze medal.”

Goepper was no stranger to sitting around and waiting to see if he’d win, having been through the same drama last year when he took a late lead in the final. In that instance, Tom Wallisch bumped him to silver with the highest score in X Games Ski Slopestyle history, 96.00.

Wallisch, skiing with a strained MCL this year, missed the final by one point Thursday and watched from the bottom of the course.

Goepper’s technical mastery was evident at all points through his run. His rail sections were clean and varied, and he spun all four ways — forward and switch, right and left — on his jumps: double cork 1080, rightside double cork 1260 tail, switch left double cork 1080 Japan, switch double misty 1260.

Canadian Alex Bellemare and 2008 champion Andreas Håtveit of Norway also posted scores in the 90s but just missed the podium. The final was so full of spectacular skiing that even after Alex Schlopy landed a double cork 1620 tail grab, his 87.33 was only good enough for seventh.

Nick Goepper holds on for gold (ESPN): http://xgames.espn.go.com/skiing/article/8870301/x-games-aspen-nick-goepper-wins-men-ski-slopestyle-final