Remember "Transitions," the historical story of the sport of halfpipe skiing as told by Riley Poor and Simon Dumont? Red Bull streamed it a while back, which for me meant I got to see about one frame of the movie every five seconds... but that visual defect has now been remedied by the hardworking folks at Freeskier who just made "Transitions" available for free download. It's in Podcast form, whatever the hell that is, but you can probably access it by clicking here (this will launch iTunes store).

Simon Dumont, wearing blue
In the meantime, you can check out the teaser below and read an interview with the Dumont about the movie here: http://www.freeskier.com/articles/article.php?article_id=4702

Sure, she's not really a freeskier and hence might be considered out of our jurisdiction here, but Lindsey Vonn rides with a Redbull helmet and that is good enough for me to post up her SI Swimsuit photos. I am keenly aware of the more prurient interests of the readers. Hannah Teter posed for the issue as well as two other Winter Olympians who do aerials or something. Feast your eyes, and check out the whole Winter Olympian Collection Here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010_swimsuit/winter/lindsey-vonn/

So it's February 4th, by my calendar, which means there's a lot of winter left yet for us here in the Northern Hemisphere... lots of trips left to go on, lots of filming left to be done, lots of tricks yet to be tried. Nonetheless, I'll be damned if this isn't one hot little teaser that Poor Boyz just dropped. I mean, this is fire. I didn't think I could get much more stoked on skiing after X Games Big Air, but this teaser for Revolver is so good it makes my asshole pucker.

Not much word on the film yet, but what do you really need to know? Schiller, Auclair, Carlson, Henituk, Tudor, Durtschi, Regnier, etc., etc. "It's just cool to see kids who are stoked, I dunno."

The embed is not working, or they turned it off (awesomely enough, either way), so click on through here to watch the teaser: http://www.poorboyz.com/media

This is, by a fair margin, the sickest pipe run you will ever see (Mike Douglas agrees) and it is fitting that it won the young Frenchie Kevin Rolland X Games Superpipe gold. Rolland threw three doubles in the run (which has been done in snowboarding, but never in skiing), two of them grabbed...

I hate to say it, but it seems like the rest of the competition folded it in after Rolland's run and was gunning for second place. Jossi Wells was stylish as all get out (nobody lands tricks smoother than he does) in getting the silver, and Xavier Bertoni snagged bronze while wearing some very handsome Orage outerwear. But Rolland was the only competitor to move away from their planned run and step up the level of difficulty. He unquestionably deserved to win.

Dumont was hurt for that competition, and nobody can tell me otherwise. He looked tentative... but the man who impressed me most was Tucker Perkins with the huge air-to-fakie and then fakie-to-fakie on the first two hits. Superstyle.

Jon Olsson, continuing his tradition of blatantly ignoring ESPN's policy about filming competition, proudly brings you the Superpipe footage:

The Dumont also looked tentative in the Big Air competiton, which was won by a Mr. Peter Olenick... that's pretty cool, he's getting old (for a pipe skier) and it's his first X Games gold. Pete went to a height of 24'11".

Photo from tjschiller.com

Video of that is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ITdilO1mQ&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=611D68B2F9F46027

And as a final note, you may or may not have wondered what ski commentator Chris Ernst looked like while calling the X Games. In case you missed it, he apparently went with the "homosexual Austrian goat-hearder look:"

Welcome to superstardom, Bobby Brown: nobody, not Tanner Hall, Dumont, Thovex, nobody had ever won two skiing golds at the same X Games, until Bobby Brown did it by waxing the competition on the slopestyle course a day after smoking everybody in the big air comp. Hatveit challenged him legitimately at slopestyle, and others are certaily better than Brown on the rails, but the simple fact remains that there is no better park jumper in skiing right now. Kid just made the leap to superstar. As always, check the replay at www.espn360.com

Name Bib # Hometown Score

1. Bobby Brown 592 Breckenridge, Colo. 94.33

2. Andeas Hatveit 560 Sudndalen, Norway 92.00

3. Sammy Carlson 574 Hood River, Ore. 89.33

4. Phil Casabon 595 Shawinigan, QC, Canada 88.66

5. Russ Henshaw 540 Jindabyne, Australia 83.66

6. Matt Walker 563 Aspen, Colo. 83.00

7. Jossi Wells 513 Wanaka, New Zealand 77.66

8. Tom Wallisch 517 Pittsburgh, Pa. 72.33

All the pretty pictures: Nate Abbott/Shazamm/ESPN Images

Last night's ski big air was simply out of this world, a great night for skiing. Bobby Brown ended up winning the thing on the backs of a Switch Double Misty 12 and Switch Double Misty 14, both of which earned him perfect 50-point scores, for a total of 100. Perfection. Schiller snagged silver on the back of a 16, the first ever thrown in competition. Jossi Wells (who didn't deserve to win, but still got absolutely jobbed on a few jumps) was stomping switch landings like he was hopping off a curb. Nonetheless, after last night, Bobby Brown is the new face of freeskiing.

This was one of those events where words fail to really capture what went on though... the intensity and excitement was palpable. If you've ever been to the X Games, you know that the crowd is, for the most part, not exactly deafening or bursting with energy (I am still convinced they pipe in crowd noise on the TV broadcasts, but never mind that). But last night you could feel the energy bursting out of the TV. Mike Douglas sounded like he was on the verge of orgasm throughout the event. The jam format was a stroke of raw genius... non-stop raw action for 15 minutes, just the best of the best going absolutely huge with no breaks or awkward pauses. Whoever thought of it at X Games headquarters deserves a raise, especially after the Big Air text-voting debacle.

I think the best thing you can say about last night was that it was the kind of spectacle that you could show to people who don't get skiing at all, and they would have to be impressed. It was awesome. Just awesome. Watch all the action (God bless ESPN360) right here: http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/player?gameId=7766&sportCode=

Name Bib No. Hometown Score

1. Bobby Brown 592 Breckenridge, Colo. 100

2. TJ Schiller 510 Vernon, BC, Canada 95

3. Elias Ambuhl 561 Laax, Switzerland 90

4. Russ Henshaw 540 Jindabyne, Australia 89

5. Jossi Wells 536 Wanaka, New Zealand 89

Photos: FlipMcCrick/Shazamm/ESPN

Jen Hudak (pictured here posing next to a US Army CH-47 Chinhook Helicopter, for some reason) just dethroned Sarah Burke as the queen of the X Games halfpipe, on what she called "the best day of her life." Jen's run featured a huge 900 on the first hit... she was more or less flawless from top to bottom and held off a strong test from second place finisher, the feisty little redheaded rookie Megan Gunning (dumb puns were made about the name at least three times by the announcers). Burke never really threatened... she tried to throw back-to-back flares (obviously feeling the pressure from the stepped up competition), but just couldn't get it done. No matter, Jen Hudak is the new queen. Long live the queen. (note: ESPN's got no pictures up of the champ... hence, the helicopter shot.)

Name Bib No. Hometown Score

1. Jen Hudak 583 Aspen, Colo. 92.33

2. Megan Gunning 521 Calgary, AB, Canada 90.66

3. Roz Groenewoud 585 Calgary, AB, Canada 86.00

4. Mirjam Jaeger 553 Zurich, Switzerland 80.33

5. Anais Caradeux 518 La Clusaz, France 76.33

6. Sarah Burke 570 Whistler, BC, Canada 73.66

Army photo from the always-entertaining: http://juliancarr.com

On the men's side of the X Games, the margin for error is extremely thin. You've basically got to do your run flawlessly to have any shot at a slopestyle gold. But Kaya Turski is so far ahead of the women's slopestyle field, it is pretty startling. She won by eleven points, but even that metric doesn't really get at how dominating her performance was. Anyway, congratulations to all the females, your fun-loving, freewheeling attitudes are contagious.




1. Kaya Turski 571 Montreal, QC, Canada 96.66
2. Keri Herman 508 Breckenridge, Colo. 85.00
3. Grete Eliassen 509 Salt Lake City, Utah 84.33
4. Ashley Battersby 539 Chicago, Ill. 83.66
5. Megan Olenick 541 Aspen, Colo. 79.33
6. Sarah Burke 570 Whistler, BC, Canada 64.66
7. Kristi Leskinen 593 Uniontown, Pa. 50.66
8. Roz Groenewoud 507 Calgary, AB, Canada 0.00

On the men's side of the coin, qualifying went as so:

1. Andeas Hatveit 560 Sudndalen, Norway 93.66
2. Bobby Brown 592 Breckenridge, Colo. 92.00
3. Russ Henshaw 540 Jindabyne, Australia 90.00
4. Sammy Carlson 574 Hood River, Ore. 89.66
5. Tom Wallisch 517 Pittsburgh, Pa. 89.00
6. Phil Casabon 595 Shawinigan, QC, Canada 85.00
7 Jossi Wells 513 Wanaka, New Zealand 84.00
8. Matt Walker 563 Aspen, Colo. 82.66

---------Death Line-------------------

9. JF Houle 594 Drummondville, QC, Canada 82.33
10. Jacob Wester 562 Taby, Sweden 80.33
11. Elias Ambuhl 561 Laax, Switzerland 75.33
12. Charles Gagnier 529 Victoriaville, QC, Canada 71.66
13. Alexis Godbout 555 Tremblant, QC, Canada 71.66
14. TJ Schiller 510 Vernon, BC, Canada 71.00
15. PK Hunder 531 Oyer, Norway 70.00
16. Colby West 530 Breckenridge, Colo. 36.33

(I am one-for-one on gold predictions... and my top three for the men are right there. Do we really need bibs anymore? It's not like this is Skier X, I think we can determine who each skier is...)

All photos: Christian Pondella/Shazamm/ESPN Images

ESPN360 is a really a glorious thing... you can usually watch just about anything you want, including the first competition video out of the 2010 X Games. In this case, it is women's pipe elimination (click here for results), which a young Canuck by the name of Meghan Gunning came out on top of (skiing with no gloves and throwing up gang gestures!)

You can watch it all at www.espn360.com, but be forewarned: there is some alarmingly loud music playing underneath the entire video (which definitely detracts from Luke Van Valen's calm, insightful, and reasoned analysis. Mirjam Jaeger skied nicely as well, here is her picture:

Related articles:

Winter X 14 Women's Ski Superpipe Qualifying Results

Winter X 14 Broadcast Schedule

Winter X Unimpeded by Olympics

ESPN360.com Offers Ongoing Winter X Coverage

So I have been wrong about a lot of things in my time, and Just Passing Thru is definitely one of them... The whole Project is a Mike Clarke endeavor, and while I had no real reason to think it wouldn't be good, it seemed at the time I recall writing about it, like just another skier trying to create his own webisode series when it was fashionable to do so. There was no reason to suspect it would be good. But this episode is a cut above (most of) the rest. Just exceptional work, all around, and I thoroughly encourage everyone to watch it. I am going to embed below, but do yourself a favor and go watch it in big HD form on the Vimeo channel page.

Just Passing Thru from Michael Clarke on Vimeo.