The past four days of Grand Prix competition at Mammoth Mountain produced some intense moments and full-on, holding-nothing-back riding as a field of 45 slopestyle and halfpipe riders battled for a few coveted spots on the US Olympic team. With the pressure on, some riders who found themselves low on the team rankings going into the Mammoth Grand Prixrose to the occasion and others, who were looking good to make the team, crumbled.
Following a day of upsets and come-ups at the final Mammoth Grand Prix pipe this morning, the majority of the US Olympic slopestyle and halfpipe was announced … More
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American Angeli VanLaanen stamped her passport to the Winter Olympics in emphatic fashion Saturday night with a resounding halfpipe victory at the Visa U.S. Grand Prix in Park City, Utah. A little over an hour later, two on the men’s side clinched berths as well as Coloradans Aaron Blunck and Lyman Currier snagged spots on the first Olympic U.S. ski halfpipe team.
“I’m on top of the world right now,” said VanLaanen. “I just went out and skied my best and it felt amazing to land my run. It’s a dream come true … More
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Olympic pressure doesn’t affect only the athletes; it impacts resorts, too. Just ask Mammoth Mountain, California’s Unbound terrain park director, TJ Dawoud. As the man in charge, it falls on Dawoud to make sure that everything on the snow is ready when the ski area hosts events. In a normal year it’s a tough job, but pile snowpack levels measuring a dismal 20 percent of normal on top of the critical final three Olympic snowboarding qualifying events and it suddenly goes from challenging to beyond reason.
Unexpectedly, due to poor weather in Breckenridge, Colorado, and, previously, challenging snow conditions in Lake Tahoe, California, Mammoth Mountain found itself hosting the last three of five Olympic qualifying snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle events … More
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Sage Kotsenburg and Jamie Anderson took top honors at the third slopestyle finals at the 2014 Mammoth Grand Prix, securing their places on the US Olympic Slopestyle Team, though the official team members have yet to be announced. See what went down in the Unbound park for yourself in this video of the event.
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