After Disaster, He’s Back
December 24, 2008 – 12:21 am PT by WinaTags: Alex Schlopy, Winter Dew Tour —
cr. Matt Power
Alex Schlopy was the big underground buzz in freeskiing slopestyle two seasons ago. But he seemed like many of the budding phenoms that excite the sport, then disappear. Maybe they can’t stand the pressure. Maybe they never got better than their first flash of brilliance. In Schlopy’s case, it was disaster that derailed him.
First, he suffered a severe concussion in a car accident last autumn. Back on skis and training for the U. S. Open in January, he blew out his knee and got another concussion, leaving him bedridden with vertigo. At 15, Schlopy had to deal with a double lesson of his own mortality.
That was then. Now he’s back. His big sponsor, Dynastar Skis, stuck with him.
“It was kind of weird at the beginning of the season, but now feel I’m getting back to the state of mind I want to be in. I’m catching up, getting back to where I feel I’m ahead of where I was before the accident,” the now-16-year-old said.
So did he choose some small, out of the way contest to make his comeback? Nope. He started big, trying for the first Winter Dew Tour stop at Breckinridge. But open qualifying was full. Alex was put on the waiting list. The night before the contest, one of the organizers called. A last-minute slot had just opened up. Alex was in.
“It was the first contest I’d been in since two years ago. I was a little scared, but at the same time I felt like it would be good to get back in. We got two hours of training before the contest. It felt good to be hitting big jumps on a nice course, and I was ready. They were pretty big jumps, anywhere between 60-70 feet, but well built. I’d been off jumps that high, but not that well built,” he said.
Any action athlete coming back after down time knows how hard the first contest always is. Schlopy didn’t put down the run he wanted. He came in 17th. But only the top 16 would go on. Then he got another nighttime call. One of the top 16 athletes was injured and dropping out. Again, Alex was in. But contest day was a windy blizzard snowstorm. “You couldn’t even see the jumps,” he said.
Dew Tour organizers called it a day after the first heat and rescheduled the contest for two days later. Each athlete would have only one run to qualify for the finals. It was during his run that Schlopy learned that he’d made a mistake. ” I didn’t wax my skis, which was kind of stupid. I couldn’t get speed, I was having trouble with the course, and landed five feet short off the first jump; that was sort of it for me,” he said.
But he’s ready for the rest of the season. “I feel that I’m back, so I’m not too disappointed. But watching the contest, I saw how far the sport has come in the past two years. If I want it, I’m really going to have to train and go after it. And I will. If I want to go to X Games, I’m going to have to train really hard. The next Dew is in Vermont, and hopefully I’ll be able to go to that one. We’ll see if I qualified to go,” he said.
He’s spending time practicing his favorite trick, switch sevens with different grabs. “That’s getting the roots down for bigger spins. It’s always good to have the roots,” Schlopy said.
And it’s also good, when you come back, to have already paid your dues.