Americans Stevenson, Forehand take top two spots in ski slopestyle on snowy Saturday
Special to The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Utah’s Colby Stevenson won X Games Aspen ski slopestyle gold on Saturday, beating out fellow American Mac Forehand of Stratton, Vermont — the silver medalist who called it “one of the hardest slopestyle courses I have ever skied.” Ferdinand Dahl of Norway took bronze.
Stevenson said there was no room for error Saturday. The new snow made it challenging to get enough speed for some of the shark features and massive jumps.
The snow made for a slow early run, but the course grew faster.
“You couldn’t make any mistakes, or you wouldn’t have made the jumps,” he said. “We had to dumb down our runs a little to cater to the weather. The same thing happened to us at Laax in Switzerland last week”.
In describing the weather’s impact, Forehand said, “Yeah, the conditions were tough out there. It’s kind of like survival of the fittest out there, but, luckily for my second run, the weather cleared up, and, ya, we made it down the course and survived out there.”
His favorite part of the course were the shark fins. The slopestyle course is packed with three rail features, two shark fin features, and two jumps. The first jump is 65 feet, and the second jump is 70 feet. The shark fin gaps are both 30 feet. The course has a technical rail section allowing for a lot of creativity and diversity on the features.
Forehand said on “the last jump, I probably did one of the best switch double 16’s of my life. So, I was just happy that I could do that as well.”
Stevenson had lots of supporters and family out on the hill. His friend Levi Pompoco said his headspace is in the right space for competition.
“He’s really focused; (I’m) super stoked for him,” said Pompoco.
Stevenson’s mom, Carol, was also cheering from the sidelines.
“I am so proud of him for doing what he does with the style he does and putting down smart runs based on the conditions,” she said.
The women’s ski slopestyle final will take place at 11 a.m. on Sunday at Buttermilk Ski Area.
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
