At X Games, One-Upmanship Is a Trend in High Places

ASPEN, Colo. — Four years ago, the snowboarder Travis Rice was riding in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains when he accidentally invented the double cork, one of the more progressive and talked-about tricks in snowboarding recently.
Rice was attempting a frontside 900 — two and a half rotations — and became too corked, or off-axis, while soaring 90 feet through the air at a place called the Pyramid Gap. Rice landed an “extremely sketchy version of the double cork,” he said.
As it happened, Rice had furthered the progression of snowboarding tricks by chance. But most often tricks evolve out of necessity, as riders are constantly trying to outdo one another in what amounts to the sport’s equivalent of a cold war arms race.

“It’s a game of one-upmanship,” said Mike Jankowski, freestyle coach for the United States snowboard team. “It’s been this way for years and years in snowboarding.”
The same is true in freeskiing, in which skiers pull tricks on some of the same terrain as snowboarders.
Often next-generation tricks are pioneered on large, straight jumps that launch riders dozens of feet through the air. At the Winter X Games this year, which take place this week at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, there will be a massive jump for a new event in skiing and snowboarding called big air

Skiers, who compete Friday, and snowboarders, who compete Saturday, will face off in a head-to-head format with their best moves while soaring from a 65-foot jump. Winners will be determined by voting from a combination of judges and fans. The better moves could eventually make their way into a halfpipe routine and, in the case of snowboarding, be part of a winning run at the Olympics in 2010.

“Tricks are definitely being progressed almost on a daily basis,” said Steve Fisher, who won gold in halfpipe at the X Games in 2007. “There’s always a drive to do the next 180 or a double cork, or something like that. And the double cork is really big off the straight jumps right now.”
Although no one has performed the double cork, an off-axis spin, in a halfpipe, “that is probably going to be the next step,” Fisher said.

Kevin Pearce, who will compete in big air and halfpipe at the X Games, said, “For me it’s hard to learn new tricks in the half, especially now that the level is so high for the tricks that you have to be learning.”
Pearce added: “I think it’s a lot easier on the jumps because if you fall, it’s not as big of a consequence. I’ve definitely learned a lot of tricks on jumps and been like, ‘Oh, I could try that in the halfpipe.’ ”
For snowboard big air, Pearce has been working on a cab 1260, in which he takes off backward, or switch-stance, and spins three and a half rotations before landing. But days before the X Games, he had not yet learned the double cork.

Two years after Rice first landed the move, he unveiled the double cork in competition, winning two events. For a time it was the most extreme trick in snowboarding. Although there are still many riders who cannot land one, by 2007 the double cork had been surpassed.
In the best trick event — a precursor to big air — at the X Games last year, Rice settled for silver when Andreas Wiig landed a frontside 1080-degree spin (three rotations) to win gold.
But in the meantime, Rice has raised the stakes. At the Icer Air event in San Francisco in November, he landed the winning run with a double backside rodeo 1080-spin, spinning while inverted.
“It’s a heavy trick,” Rice said.
In skiing, tricks often progress according to the same principles as snowboarding.
“Somebody will get the guts to try a new trick and other people will see that it’s possible,” the freeskier Peter Olenick said. “Then they’ll try it and figure out how they can do it or they can do it better.”

Two years ago, Jon Olsson pioneered double flips — off-axis double back flips — on large jumps. Last year, Olenick transferred double flips to halfpipe, calling his version the whiskey flip, which helped him win bronze in the event at the X Games.
“I’m sure this year there’s going to be a bunch of people doing the one I did last year or trying new ones,” Olenick said. “We all just kind of feed off each other.”
For Olsson, a progressive freeskier who has won eight X Games medals and will compete in big air, the challenge is to remain ahead of the pack.
“I spend half a year on a new trick, while someone watches a video and sees, ‘Oh that’s possible; I’ll go out and learn it,’ ” he said. “They’ll learn it in a week.”
Olsson has learned new variations of double flips for big air this year, but, he said, “people are catching up fast.”

Some skiers have landed 1660-degree spins (four and a half rotations), although without the necessary stylish grab to win a competition. But Olsson believes that the day is not far off when the trick will be performed with flair.
“Two years ago I would have said a double flip with a cool grab would be impossible,” Olsson said. “But things progress so fast. One year you think something is impossible and the next year everyone is doing it.”