Monday, April 21, 2014

Holderness Freeski Season Total Final Results

Freestyle School Team:
  • Lakes Region Slopestyle, Boys 5 x 1st  


Freestyle Individual: (8 Freestylers scoring 39 podiums)


  • Merrill, Thorn (8) USASA, Slopestyle National Champs 1st   USASA, Rail Jam National Champs    1st  
AFP Slopestyle Carinthia Open 1st
USASA Rail 1st
USASA Slopestyle 3 x 1st
Lakes Region Slopestyle 1st


  • Caulder, Christopher  (10) USASA, Skier Cross National Champs 1st
USASA Slopestyle 4 x 1st
USASA Skier Cross 2 x 1st
   Lakes Region, Slopestyle 2 x 1st
Lakes Region, Slopestyle 3rd


  • Fernandes, Hanna (9) USASA Slopestyle National Champs 2nd
USASA Rail Jam 2 x 1st  
USASA Slopestyle 1st
USASA Skier Cross 1st
USASA Slopestyle 2 x 2nd
Lakes Region, Slopestyle 2 x 1st


  • Finn, Jack (6) USASA Slopestyle 1st
USASA Slopestyle 2 x 2nd
USSA Slopestyle 3rd
Lakes Region, Slopestyle 2nd
Lakes Region Slopestyle 3rd


  • Stanley, Anna (2) Lakes Region Slopestyle 2 x 2nd


  • Sheffield, Charlie (2) USASA Slopestyle 2 x 2nd


  • Attenborough, John USASA Slopestyle 2nd

  • Robertson, Cameron    USASA Slopestyle 3rd

Holderness Nationals!

This years USASA Nationals held in Copper Colorado, was certainly one for the books. We set out to Colorado with high hopes, and we pulled it off! Three of my kids ended up on the podium! 


 Chris Caulder (middle) Recieved a Gold medal in the mens 16-18 Skierscross Event.


Thorn Merrill (middle) had a tremendous preformance and was able to recieve two Gold medals, one for Skier Mens 16-18 Slopestyle, as well as another gold medal in the mens 14 and up Rail Jam event.

Hannah Fernandes was able to fight her way to the second place spot earning herself her first Nationals Silver medal!

A Brief History of Freeskiing

From Hot-dogging to Freeskiing

            The year was 1971 when a bunch of ski racers decided to switch over from ski racing to a skiing style called hot dog skiing. Hot-dogging contained maneuvers like the twister, or the daffy, and the spread eagle was invented during that era. Hot-dogging had been pretty much an entire decade full of bright neon clothing and outrageous ski acrobatics. People were starting to really love Hot-dogging so it caught on quick.

            After the Hot-dogging era sputtered out, an ex-ski racer, Scott Schmidt, and Glen Plake among others lead the charge of extreme skiing. This was around 1988 where extreme skiing became a huge hit. They went to France and through themselves down extremely steep mountain faces and jumped enormous cliffs, pushing the limits entirely for what everyone even knew of skiing.

            The 90’s were pretty much dominated by the new sport of the time called snowboarding. Surfing and skateboarding were its inspiration so it appealed to a whole new kind of crowd but that wasn’t about to stop skiing from pushing forward. Skiers like Doug Coombs fought back by heading to Alaska and exploring in what would become the proving ground for No Limits Big Mountain Skiing.

            Back in the lower 48 states, another future Pioneer Shane McConkey protested his mogul ski event disqualification for an inverted backflip by sneaking back in the chorus naked exposing skiing’s rowdy, fun loving and most importantly, FREE future.

             In 1996 former racer Jeremy Novice armed with new fat powder skis, ripped Alaska’s infamous Pyramid Peak in only three turns and bloom! Skiing was cool again. Soon a group of Canadian bump skier convinced Solomon to create the world’s first twin tip ski’s igniting the possibilities for new tricks and truly launching the age of new-school Freeskiing.

            In 1998, Freeski “prodigy” Jonny Moseley won the Nagano Olympics with a 360 grab resulting in a huge rise in new-school freeskiers. Skiers started to rebel against the snowboard movement by poaching snowboard parks, throwing more grabs, spins, flips, and grinds. Skiers started going really big taking their new tricks to all over the world. Things seemed to be as extreme as they could be but one winter day in Alaska Shane McConkey changed everything. McConkey skied a huge line on water skis!! This was the industries first glance into rocker technology. This enabled skiers to be almost limitless all over the mountain; this changed the ski design world forever.

            As things in the back country heated up, back in the terrain park big air progression took off, as Jon Olson landed the worlds first ever double rodeo in the 2008 Xgames competition, he called it the Kangaroo flip. From that moment on, double flips and double corks were the trick to learn if you wanted to win events.

            In 2008, Simon Dumont went on a successful mission to set a world record, jumping over 35 feet in a quarter pipe at Sunday River in Maine, US all while battling it out for the X Games halfpipe gold, with 12 time medalist Tanner Hall before an enormous backcountry crash would end his halfpipe skiing career.

            After Tom Wallisch’s 2007 Level 1 SuperUnknown edit debuted, Internet ski culture exploded and tons of slopestyle innovators like Wallisch began launching their careers online, further driving skiers aerial progression and taking Freeskiing to an entirely new; and crazy if you ask me, level.

            By 2010 International Olympic Committee recommended ski halfpipe be included in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. When the 2014 games arrived, America triumphed in a three-way USA podium consisting of Nick Geopper in third place, Gus Kenworthy in second place, and Utah Native Joss Christiensen taking the first ever Freeskiing Olympic gold medal ever.


            The way Freeskiing has progressed has undoubtedly left myself as well as most members of the Freeskiing community, dumbfounded at the magnitude our sport has reached. In a matter of about 40 years the sport has gone from twister spreads to triple flips and double flips off of rails. The sport will no doubt triumph in the years to come, especially after the successful debut in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

What is USASA?

Long story short, USASA stands for United States of America Ski/Snowboard Association. It is an organization that is trying to push the sport of skiing and snowboarding as far as it will go. It pushes competition skiing and snowboarding specifically and in doing so they hope to help men, women, boys and girls of all ages achieve their goals to become big in the sport of their preference. I use to compete through this organization, it helped me get sponsored by multiple companies and really just helped me get closer to living my dream.

Below is a link to the Website for USASA, if you would like to learn more about USASA, please check it out. It may help you understand what the sport is all about.

USASA





Enjoy!

Team Training and Competition Schedule

Below is the schedule for my team this year. A long time has gone by since the beginning of the season so we have come far in the schedule, this may just help you know when the next events are coming up!


Blue indicates the USASA events
Yellow indicates Lake Region events

 

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Holderness Team Wraps It Up!

February 21, 2014

Most of the teams season has come to a conclusion as of Friday. In celebration of a great season for the lakes region team we decided it was only appropriate to host our annual Gaper day! Gaper day is a day where you just fool around. You dress up in pretty much some of the silliest things you can find and have a blast on the mountain.
      The season may be over for some of the team but the nationals competitors are still training in full force in preparation for nationals held in Copper Colorado early April.

The Team Wins Lakes Region Championship!

February 19, 2014

The team traveled to Killington Vermont Wednesday to compete for the Lakes Region Championships. The team has been killing it all season traveling all across the lakes region resorts competing against other ski teams and managed to win every single competition that we have attended which amounts to around 14 competitions. We started strong and ended stronger, capping off the season with a victory at the championships.