Inside Winter X Games 12

Jan 28 2008 / Aspen, CO

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Update - January 27, 2008

The final day was pretty tough. We had our forerunner, Margie, (Margeurite Thorp) crash pretty hard in the finish area. She broke a bone in her hand, but she'll be fine, and able to compete in Deer Valley.

The course was much faster, and more dangerous than in the previous days. We had eight athletes go to the hospital in total. The crashes were the worst ever, in all X Games history. Lars Levian has a pretty servere concussion and a sprained knee, probably out for the season. Enak Gavaggio sprained his knee and hit his head. All this was on the same jump.

One of the women, Karin Huttary, fractured her pelvis. And that's just because the track was slightly faster, and it had been groomed again, and they put a lip on some of the jumps, turning them into kickers. It changed the line, the height, the distance, and it messed things up.

It's a TV show, it's not a sporting event. ESPN's expertise is in television, and not putting on sporting events, so it's not about the athletes. I mean, no one's forcing anyone to go to the start, we all make our own decisions, and they chose to race, but...

My guy ended up got a bad start and didn't get out of the first round because he was fourth. But he's ready for Deer Valley.

The disabled guys really put on a show. But it's sad for Kevin Bramble. He was way in the lead, took a jump, then you couldn't see him any more. Finally, he came in a long time after all the other guys. His ski had broken during that jump.

(Meanwhile, X forerunner Marguerite Thorp had some inside info of her own to offer. Here's what she added:)

One of the coolest things I heard was from Errol Kerr after he was first in the men's 'X qualifying. When I asked him how he was feeling after he won, he said, "I keep waiting to wake up." He's living his dream.

One of the sponsors of the Games was Toblerone, that yummy Swiss chocolate. So there was boxes of Toblerone bars in the athlete's tent. The Toblerone people were opening the boxes and handing out bars to the athletes, but people kept stealing the whole boxes. So then you had to ask them for some, you couldn't just take it, and they only give you one bar. No one would admit to snagging any of the boxes. But here's the thing: Jeff is a chocoholic. And how he says he has enough chocolate for the next month!

(Back to Sadis, who has an update on the missing stuffed beaver, with a little slam for the advancing forehead of Willi Wiltz)

We found the Beaver! The Canadians found it. I think Willi was stealing it to use it as a toupee. I think he's got it in his backpack now.

Now it's a long drive home in the snow. I'm smiling now, because I'm thinking about Deer Valley. Qualifying is Feb 1, and the race is Feb 2. Practice starts Wednesday.

I'm so tired, I'm cooked. But sleep is for the weak.

Update - January 26, 2008

It was a tough battle this morning, first we started off with the men's. I had Michal Novotny, he's from the Czech Republic, their boardercross national champion and European Cup winner. He was in the lead for a good portion of the race. But he got caught up in the traffic, hooked the nose of the board on a gate, and did not advance to the next round. That's just racing.

Then we went to the women's round. All my women were able to advance to the finals. So I had three women at the finals, which is kinda nice. No other tech had three athletes, they all just had individuals.

I had two girls in lanes five and six, one in lane two. We made some plans on how to race together, how we were going to approach the start. It worked pretty well. But Mellie (Francon) got caught up in the traffic on top. It was Tanja (Frieden) and Lindsey Jacobellis right out of the start, Lindsey caught up with Tanja, and then Sandra Frei was about even with Lindsey, Tanja slightly ahead. Mellie tried to get in the the middle of them to make a pass, but crashed. At that point, Lindsey got into the lead. Lindsey and Tanja battled the whole way down. Lindsey was first, Tanja second. Sandra made a nice pass and slid into third. It was a pretty close race all the way down to the wire. Definitely a satisfying day for all the athletes and their coach, which was me! I was their coach as well as their tech for this race.

That's about it. After the awards ceremony, we had a small, quiet celebration back in the ski tuning room. Tomorrow we have men's and women's ski cross. I don't have any women it, but I have one guy, he's going up against some good, strong Canadians. It's going to be very challenging. They are Willi Wiltz's guys. (NOTE: Wiltz is a legendary ski tuner, with Olympic and World Championship medals to his credit. The obvious competition is between the athletes, but behind the scenes, coaches and gear techs also compete.)

Willi Wiltz has probably forgot more about ski tuning than I'll ever know, so I definitely have my work cut out for me. If you know your skis can be close to someone like Willi, you know you're doing something right.
 
There's still a lot of talk about the timing (NOTE: Read yesterday's Update for the lowdown on this). I think everyone pretty much agrees that the timing was a joke. The whole thing affected the althetes, and the credibility of the people holding the event. Maybe they'll get it right next time.
 
Something kind of funny has happened. There is this ratty stuffed beaver that the techs keep passing around, they have been stuffing it in each other's backpacks and wax boxes for more than ten years, at World Cups, Olympics, everywhere. I found it in my pack, and put it in another tech's pack, and suddenly it's gone. We'd all like it back before Deer Valley (The Deer Valley skicross World Cup next week). If anyone knows where it is, please send me an email, jeffsadis@gmail.com.

That's about it. Right now, I'm going to dinner in Aspen, then going to go to bed, get up early, and scrape skis. They are already waxed and prepped ready for tomorrow. Maybe I'll get some sleep tonight.

Update - January 25, 2008

I'm pretty happy; all of my athletes qualified, every single one. Cody Smith did fantastic today. He had a really fast pair of skis. On the first qualifying run, he actually outjumped one of the jumps and had a hard landing. He went back up for a rerun, and won it by over a second. He was fifth overall by time, but because he had to take a rerun, he ended up in 19th place. But we’re really happy with that result.

Today was the women snowboarder qualifying. (NOTE: ESPN's X Games web site, EXPN, states: "As soon as the prestigious X Games judges beam their scores up to the massive Buttermilk scoreboard, they'll appear right here." But eight hours after the snowboard X, those results still had yet to be posted.) ESPN sucked at putting up the boarding events on their web site. They are great at TV, but they could use a little more organization. Not saying anything bad, just an observation.

Of my women snowboarders, Sandra Frei qualified second, Mille Francon qualified 10th, and Olympic gold medalist Tanya Frieden qual 9th. They all made it, and quite well. Lindsey Jacobellis qualified 8th.

But there may have been something wrong with the timing. There’s been quite a bit of discussion between the technicians of several countries this evening. The timing is being called into question. Everyone finds it strange that these results don’t match up to the world cup results.

Wax was important today, but the times today were something outside the waxing realms. The decisions were made between me and the athletes about waxing and tuning, the athletes were happy with their boards and skis. I made the decisions in conjunction with the athletes, and I’m glad we stuck with them. There was some excellent riding and skiing today, great performances.

We got about six inches of snow last night, and it made the course a little bit slower. It was a real disadvantage to the snowboarders, especially the ones that went first, which were the women. The first ones had to come back and requalify, because their times were so much slower than the ones who went later.

The guys who went after the women ran had a few seconds advantage, which was significant. (NOTE: Jeff believes the new wax discovery by Holmenkol played a part in his athlete's success. The company also sent a staff to work under his guidance, as each athlete has four boards or pairs of skis, and each must be prepped for different weather conditions) I had some help from my friends at Holmenkol, and we used some stuff we’d been planning on using, something new, and it worked out well for us. Our product will be shown at the International show in Germany, which is like the Outdoor Retailer Show, but bigger. but we are just showing it, the new wax won't be available until next year.

One of the American women skiers, Langley McNeil, had a spectacular crash. She went off an 85 foot jump at the finish, got off balance and landed off balance and pretty much imploded. But she’s okay. She even qualified.

I was up till 2:00 am, and on the hill at 8:00. The workload is pretty constant.

There was a pretty good crowd watching today. The finals of the mono ski guys, the diabled skiers, will be on Sunday. There were some pretty good battles today in that. Tyler Walker was by far the outstanding disabled skier.
 
Saturday, we have the snowboard cross finals for men and women, ski cross is Sunday. For ski cross, I like the newcomer Errol Kerr. He won today. He won’t win overall, but I like his skiing. I think he’ll make it to the final. Daron Rahlves qualified 5th. Second was Davey Barr. Casey Puckett qualified third. In the women, Sasa Saric first, Magdalena Johnsson, Karin Huttary third.
 
I'll have a lot of inside stories tomorrow, because everyone has been waiting just for the finals.

Update - January 24, 2008

The pipe ski pipe finals are going on right now (9:30 p.m.), but I have to tune skis. I’ve been working all day. Today, the athletes had skicross and boarder cross training. I think the best woman is Tanya Friedman, partly is because she’s my athlete, but she’s also the best girl out there right now.

The course was running a lot slower today. The one thing I did see was these disabled guys on monoskis, 'sitskis,' were going down the course and hitting the same jumps as the ablebodied boys, it was rather impressive. They were getting huge air.

There’s a competition for disabled athletes tomorrow. It will be on tape delay. They work just as hard, ski just as hard as anybody else. It’s pretty cool to watch. One of them, Kevin Bramble (broke his back in a snowboarding accident, became a monoskier, made the U. S. disabled ski team, won gold in the 2002 Paralympic downhill) took a pretty good digger today. He’s fine, but he broke all his gear. Shattered the ski. But he's okay..

I got the wax I needed,  the supply finally showed up just in time. I could tell you what I’m waxing with, but then I’d have to kill you.

The techs, we’re all friendly and share tools and ideas, but we keep what we do for our athletes to ourselves. At this level, you’ve got to be smart enough to know what works. I use a combination of waxes. You can use waxes from different companies, I did that tonight.
 
I’m standing here right now with a guy from Holmenkol who has a new wax. He’s got something new and we’re going to try it tomorrow. His name is Spike Kullas, we've been friends for years. If this turns out to be 'the wax,’ I’m sure as sh*t not going to tell anybody. The other techs won’t know until after the race. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t, we’ll just have to wait and see.

I watched boardercross and skicross training. They tweaked the course a little, made two jumps bigger, but easier to navigate. I also tested wax today. We made a 25-second test track. We set up a timing light with three timing positions. We run the athletes through, they run straight down the hill, we use that for a base line. Then we try different waxes and have them do it again. I only tested three waxes today, because I knew right away which one worked. We techs don’t give each other that information. Maybe after the competition, we tell each other what we used, maybe we don’t, but we are also trying to figure it out for the next race.
 
Today I prepped 12 boards and ten pairs of skis. I had a crew of people helping me from a wax company. I'll spend about 12 hours working.

Half pipe athletes don't use race service. Those guys are really great at jumping and spinning, it’s amazing to watch, but they really aren’t into turning. That’s what makes this event so neat. There are so many different kinds of snowriding happening.

Qualifications will start at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. Everybody’s in race mode, they want to get this thing going. 'Cross this year is bigger than it’s ever been. It’s all free to the public. All they have to do is show up. Athletes always go down and mix with the fans, there’s a lot of interaction. The fans get to meet everyone they want.

 I saw the guys on snowmobiles warming up today. They were doing backflips on snowmobiles. The jumps are already built. They have a new event, it’s a race that you have to do tricks in the middle of it. It drew a pretty large crowd. Mixture of freestyle.
 
(While Jeffrey was talking, 'cross forerunner Marguerite Thorp, 19, who goes by Margie, came in to get her skis and agreed to be interviewed.)
 
Oh, man, the course is terrific, it’s a lot of fun. It looks huge, but when you get up there, it’s not. It’s pretty straightforward once you get on the snow. There are definitely rivalries among the athletes, but the biggest rivalries happen between people of the same countries.
 
I’m competing at Deer Valley, (the first 'Cross World Cup in North America, Feb. 2) but I'm only a forerunner here. It's an invite only field at the X Games, and I wasn’t invited. I go to Harvard, it’s pretty hard for me to get time one snow, so I need the training. Right now, It looks good for me to make the Olympic team, but you never know. There are a lot of good girls coming up. I’m waiting to see who comes out of the woodwork.

I was watching the men’s ski pipe final before I got to Jeff's room. It's amazing! They are throwing the kind of stuff you expect a gymnast to do. Tanner Hall ended up winning tonight. Second Place was Simon Dumont. He was definitely the crowd’s favorite. There were a lot of boo’s when his score was posted lower than Tanner’s. It may be an underdog thing, people have heard so much about Tanner Hall, he’s old news. Simon looked great in the air. It looked like he got twice as far out of the pipe as anyone else.

The local favorite is Peter Olenik. He’s got a huge group of family and friends here. He made a pretty big mistake that probably cost him the comp. (Note: Olenik came in 7th). He came down after a pretty good hit, and was back on his heels, so he lost all his speed and was off balance so couldn’t recover very well.

There’s some interaction between sports, but our schedules are so different that we don’t meet up much. We don’t see the snowmobile guys very much, but we do see the half pipers. The guys have their chests pumped out, all macho, but the girls are nicer to each other. There’s a kind of rivalry between the pipe and course athletes, they think their sport is cooler. Definitely the guys in both are pretty proud of themselves.
 
I think the big 'cross guy will be Daron Rahlves. He’s going to win, maybe not right away and maybe not every event, but he’s going to be unstoppable.

Update - January 23, 2008

Today was the first big day of training. It was the first chance all the athletes were together on the course. There was quite a showing from the skiing side, the air was huge.
 
It is by far the biggest terrain I've ever seen in a ski cross competition. The unique thing about this course is that it's all very rideable, yet it's a challenging and very high tempo course. It's intimidating, but nothing is impossible here, which is a credit to the course designer.
 
The athletes seem pretty impressed. Everybody is commenting on how long the features are. It's about a third longer than last year, and it seems geared more for skiers this year, which is nice.
 
I would say that the Canadians and American Cody Smith were going the biggest. Cody is one of my athletes (Sadis preps Cody's equipment). There was some training in the half pipe and in the big air park, the guys were going fairly big. The girls were solid, but most of them spent the day sectioning the ski cross course, practicing sections of it. The French girls were definitely on it, and I expect them to do quite well.
 
Tanya Frieden and Lindsay Jacobelis were each training in separate parts of the course, but they were eying each other a lot. It's really a rivalry, but a good one. (Note: In the snowboard cross debut at the 2006 Torino Olympics, Jacobellis was well ahead when, caught in the joy of winning Olympic gold, she pulled a trick just before the finish---and fell. Frieden breezed past while Jacobellis scrambled to her feet. Frieden won the gold medal, Jacobellis had to settle for silver)
 
It was fun watching them both, because there's a certain intensity there that's really exciting to watch. They are both very intense. They are both true competitors.
 
Tanya Friedman is one of my athletes. Lindsay looks very, very solid, more together than I've ever seen her riding.
 
The two of them will absolutely be one of the most exciting comps of the games, that's the one everybody's going to be watching.
 
Today there were a lot of media interviews for the athletes, and the organizers were taking all the head shots. The media was given tours through the ski shops (tuning rooms), so it was a busy day for us.
 
It's still busy even now, at midnight. There's a high volume of skis and board to do, I have to figure out which are the fast ones for Saturday and Sunday. Friday is qualifying, Saturday is the board race, and Sunday is the ski race.
 
Tanner Hall and Shaun White are here, but I haven't seen them yet. They changed the layout of the events a little this year, made it easier for the spectators to see. There's quite a few more cameras on the cross course. There's definitely more interest in the sport, more international media interest for certain.
 
There's a core group of about 8 or 10 of us (equipment techs) who are always sharing the same space. We like to get our work done, so we don't socialize. We don't have time. The athletes actually have more time than we do. Generally we're here before seven in the morning and don't go home until after midnight.
 
I now have eight pairs of skis and 14 boards I'm working on. I've got three women snowboarders, one male boarder, and two skiers, one female and one mail; all 'cross atheltes. The weather is supposed to get a little colder, which will make the track and pipe a little firmer, hopefully. It's a little soft in places. I'm running out of ski wax, and will have to get more tomorrow.
 
But I'm really looking forward to getting into bed tonight.

Update - January 22, 2008

Right now, it's 10:00 p.m. at night, I'm working on a snowboard for Mellie Francon, who was second in a boardercross World Cup last week. She is going to do snowboardX, X is for 'cross, here at the Games. I'm just waxing her board for now. I still have about three hours of prep work to do.
 
Today I made a course inspection of the 'cross track. It's about a third longer than it was last year, and the air is significantly bigger. The course designer did an excellent job. It still needs to be modified and shaped, but tomorrow the athletes will start running it.
 
The Canadians just arrived. They have six athletes. Sam Hyer was the X Games champion last year, and I worked with him last year. Willi Wiltz will be teching for him this year. (Note: Wiltz became a legendary tech after he did Tommy Moe's skis in 1994, when Moe won the Olympic downhill gold medal and the super G silver medal) 
 
For the athletes, today was about finding your feet on the snow. Tomorrow is when things start really cranking. Most of the technicians were moving around. I'm standing here right now with Chris Taylor, who works for Solomon International.
 
And, I finally got a heater, the hardest thing I did all day. I feel a lot better today. (Note: in his previous report, Jeffrey told how the unheated tech rooms were freezing, and he had to go into other rooms just to warm up. It's hard to tune skis and boards when your fingers are numb from cold!)
 
They are still putting cameras up. Guys are putting cables across the hill today, but it should all be set up by tomorrow. They are working 24/7. As soon as the sun goes down, the lights go on. The whole hill is lit up. It's pretty amazing, the amount of infrastructure involved. All of this work is being done for television. The athletes are definitely a secondary concern at events like this.
 
I have 12 snowboards and 4 sets of Dynastar skis, four more sets of Volkls, each set of four for one athlete. I'll have a whole wall lined with skis once my athletes get here. So far, I've got Cody Smith, Marguerite Thorp, Mellie, three Swiss women and the Czech national boardercross champion.
 
It was snowing lightly this morning. Right now it's clear skies. The forcast says it's going to be unsettled over the next couple of days. A little challenging for the wax, because it warms up in the afternoon, so you have to wax colder than you think you'll need.
 
There's no more free buffets here. We all buy our food, nothing's free anymore. If you buy enough from the local stores, you might get a free t-shirt out of it, just a way of thanking us for putting the owner's kids through college.
 
As glamorous and beautiful as this event is, it's a lot like making sausage behind the scenes. You really don't want to see how it's made. But things are shaping up for really good competitions at the Games.

The First Days

Jeffrey Sadis got to the Aspen/Snowmass Buttermilk mountain four days before the X Games, the day athlete registration started.
 
"I picked up my credentials and then went and got my tuning area. I just wanted to get it done before all the craziness starts," he says.
 
Sadis is a World Cup and Olympic ski tech. He will tune skis for skier/snowboard X athletes Cody Smith, Mille Francon, forerunner Marguerite Thorp, three Swiss snowboarders and the Czech national Snowboarder X champion. Sadis may pick up some more halfpipe athletes just to make some extra money. He charges $100 a day, plus 10 per cent of whatever his athletes win. But as as every athlete knows, a good tech is definitely worth a cut.
 
After finding his assigned room and setting out his equipment, Sadis went to the finish area of the ski cross to watch the final shaping and grooming of the finish. "It's pretty big. the flight from the jump will be about 120 feet long, and it's about 15 feet in the air. They are using a winch cat and a regular grooming machine for the last touches," he says.
 
He goes on to describe the scene: "There was some halfpipe training going on today. All the typical suspects were there. I saw Simon Dumont lurking around there. A lot of the younger guys were just trying to get a feel for the place, they weren't going that big, they were just trying to get used to it."
 
Sadis' "shop" room is in a good spot. "The Canadian skicross team is in the room on my left, the Solomon International team to my right, and the U. S. snowboard team is across the hall from me," he says.
 
The tuning rooms are a kind of hangout for the athletes, and the cold, dank basement rooms are a social center; with techs and athletes wandering back and forth for impromptu parties. A tech will be prepping skis or a board, working hard while laughing and joking with a crowd in his room.
 
Sadis has one problem, though. The prep rooms are not heated. He has no heater, and he's freezing. He goes over to the Solomon room to warm up when his fingers get too cold. But nothing stops him from working. 
 
"My athletes arrive tomorrow, and I want them to be ready to get on snow so they can go out and see the hill. I'm super excited to get going on this thing. It's not the first time I've been here, but I want to come away with some medals this time," Sadis says.
 
Last year, Brett Buckles and Stanley Hayer were among his X athletes. Buckles came in 7th, Hayer was 5th.

Thanks to Wina Sturgeon at AdventureSportsWeekly.com for contributing to this article.