St. Onge Headlines Day Two at Deer Valley Freestyle World Cup

cr. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

The news quickly spread all over the world; Ryan St Onge was back. He won the Deer Valley Freestyle World Cup aerials with a triple backflip and four twists — called a “double full full full,” and while in the air with the risky jump, just hoped he could land with his skis on the ground.

“I knew that if I could somehow get my feet underneath me, it was going to be the biggest scoring jump that I could possibly do. I had a good takeoff. I stretched for my life, and somehow my feet got down, and I was so happy,”  St Onge said. It was the U. S. Olympian’s first World Cup win since 2006.

In the women’s aerials, Emily Cook managed to take third place, despite the domination of the Chinese women, who went one-two. Nina Li won, followed by teammate Xinxin Guo. Of the 12 international women who qualified for the finals, four were from China.

The story of the second day of the annual World Cup is best told in a series of visual, behind-the-scenes moments.

While the aerialists soared into the night ski like acrobats without trapezes, a line of exhausted volunteers slowly moved up the mogul hill shoveling and chopping the snow, getting the dual mogul course ready for Saturday. They were fluffing up the snow to make soft landings below the jumps for the final day of competition.

Canada’s Veronika Bauer was the first freestyler out for the women’s finals, but hung on to her “first place” for nearly the entire competition, as skier after skier blew their landings, touching down with a hand, landing off center, or falling. Bauer ended up in fourth place; not because her trick was that difficult, but because she was one of the few who nailed her landing.

Australia’s Jaqui Cooper, once the most dominant freestyler in the world, also had a bad landing, and a nanosecond of enraged anger flashed across her face before she replaced it with a noncommittal expression. She ended up eighth out of the dozen finalists.

Emily Cook, watching the men from inside the athlete’s fence, was exuberant. “I’ve been working on a new trick, so being on the podium has been my goal for the whole season,” she said. Luckily, it was a near balmy night. The ankle that Emily smashed in 2002 still hurts her when it’s cold. “But I just push through it and go out every week and try to do the best jumps I can,” she said.

Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, obviously annoyed at having the settle for the rubber trophy—fourth place—still stopped and posed with three young boys who were holding a homemade “Speedy” sign.

In the finish area, at the bottom of the aerial hill, Ryan St Onge and his father Cary hugged each other tightly in a long moment of silent rejoicing. As they pulled apart, Cary was crying. Embarrassed, he walked away from the horde of photographers and reporters surrounding his son. Still, he could not contain his joy over his son’s win after two dry seasons. “Last year was a tough year for him, and seeing him come back — we’ve all; been dreaming about this for him,” Cary said, his eyes glowing with pleasure.

But one of the top moments of the night happened after the whole event was over, the press was gone, and the public was walking down the snow covered hill to the parking lot. Three teens grabbed one of the thick foam pads from inside the course fencing, piled on it and began sliding down the hill — a dangerous out-of-control joy ride. Deer Valley Ski Patroller Mark Chytka began skiing down after them; yelling at the careless trio to roll off the pad.

They actually got thrown off when they hit a bump, and all three began running away as fast as they could. By this time, other patrollers had joined the chase. Two of the joyriders got away, but Chytka, skiing fast, grabbed one of the perps and chewed him out a new one. Bystanders cheered and applauded. One spectator said, “You should be on the ski team! You came on fast, came up beside that guy and took him down. That was well done!”

Chytka smiled modestly and said, “I was just doing my job.”

- Wina Sturgeon