Mammoth - The last of the Qualifiers

Been a bit quite on the blog front lately, but let me get you up to speed. Following the World Cup in Aspen, we had a few days off before the Olympic Qualifier Grand Prix event. During that time, I somehow got food poisoning the day before our contest, but was thankfully able to still compete. Although bummed to miss finals again by two spots, at that point I was just happy to not be sick in bed. I finished that event as the 6th place American, and 13th overall for the event. 

The next morning we made an attempt to fly out of Aspen, but ran into some weather that shut down the Denver airport. This made a few of us switch our flights to later that evening, and instead had a mellow day hanging out in Aspen with Alex Ferraria and Torin Yater-Wallace. Once we finally arrived in Reno at midnight, stayed at a cheap hotel and made our way to Mammoth in morning without my ski bags, which were sent to San Francisco instead of Reno. Thankfully was able to borrow some gear to make it work for the day. At the first meeting, we were informed of the incoming storm to the Mammoth area and had to make some adjustments to the schedule. Snowboard qualifiers were the next day, and we had some practice following the event. Thankfully that evening my skis showed up, and the next day I was able to get a full training session in our one hour on the course. 

The next day we attempted to have our contest, but with the storm laying waste to the mountain, we had to postpone the contest another day. When it was time for our contest, I was feeling really good and confident about my run. During the first run, I had a bit of a backslap though and didn’t get a good score. About halfway through our first runs, the speed got worse, and made the majority of the field come up short on the first jump. This would carry on to be the theme of the day. Where someone would have an amazing run going for them, then they would come up short on the first jump. Obviously this made me quite frustrated, but after crashing my second run from the first jump, I was able to hang out with Dj DC in the announcing booth and finish the day on a higher note. 

Pretty bummed since I knew the importance of making that final, but was able to get another try at the course the following day for our final Olympic Qualifier. Made it into that final from my first run score, and finished the contest in 6th place with a run I was happy with. This entire fall has been one of the most hectic and craziest I’ve ever been apart of with all the training, and extra work put it. A lot of happy moments, and a lot of frustrating ones too. But it was still worth it to put myself out there and go for it. After all the contests, I finished my Olympic Qualifiers as the 7th place American. Congratulations to Nick, Gus, McRae, and A-Hall for making the team. To everyone else who competed through this intense past month, I salute you. Now let’s go ski and have some fun! Next up X Games.