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.
