X-games invited athletes

E

Elg

Active member
Just saw this posted on facebook.

http://espn.go.com/action/xgames/winter/2011/news/story?page=2011-winter-x-games-15-athletes-ski

Skiing Slopestyle - Men

Athlete Name Country

Elias Ambuhl SUI

Bobby Brown USA

Sammy Carlson USA

Phil Casabon CAN

Russ Henshaw AUS

Andreas Hatveit NOR

Gus Kenworthy USA

TJ Schiller CAN

Alex Schlopy USA

Tom Wallisch USA

Jossi Wells NZL

Skiing Slopestyle - Women

Athlete Name Country

Ashley Battersby USA

Grete Eliassen NOR

Keri Herman USA

Anna Segal AUS

Kaya Turski CAN

Skiing Superpipe - Men

Athlete Name Country

Xavier Bertoni FRA

Justin Dorey CAN

Simon Dumont USA

AJ Kemppainen FIN

Peter Olenick USA

Tucker Perkins USA

Mike Riddle CAN

Kevin Rolland FRA

Taylor Seaton USA

Byron Wells NZL

Jossi Wells NZL

Walter Wood USA

Skiing Superpipe - Women

Athlete Name Country

Dania Assaly CAN

Sarah Burke CAN

Anais Caradeux FRA

Virginie Faivre SUI

Roz Groenewoud CAN

Jen Hudak USA

Mirjam Jaeger SUI

Brita Sigourney USA
 
"Please note: The invited athlete list is constantly being updated and is subject to change."

What surprises me the most is that on the snowboarder list there are people listed under Snowboard Big Air, but there is no such list for the skiers? No Ski big air this year?
 
Not enough names to be the full list, I'm guessing Harlaut and Walker are in plus a few more.
 
It seems like most of the guys who were injured last season and didn't get to compete are the ones missing from the list. Probably just didn't get the results needed and will be added later.
But why didn't Megan Gunning make it immediately? She qualified first in pipe last year and did well in plenty of comps.
 
Just two months left waaa! Seriously, I can't believe it's 'almost' x-games time already. Last x-games feel like 3 months ago...
 
Elias Ambuhl

Bobby Brown

Russ Henshaw

TJ Schiller

Alex Schlopy

They're all pretty good at jumps, but i doubt anything other than a 270 on 270 off a box. maybe 450, so extreme. oh yeah, w/ a wedge landing looking like they are feared for their lives through the rail section.

everyone else on the list is pretty well rounded.
 
Hahah i lol'd, im pretty sure all of those guys are pretty good at rails, just because they aren't tom or phil and hit urban all season doesn't mean they aren't good at rails.
 
Saying Schlopy isn't good at rails is totally stupid.

All these guys can stomp slopestyle style rails with good slopestyle tricks. It's hard to judges rails in a slopestyle course because you cannot compare a 450 on disaster to a switch up on the same rail.

 
yeah they're pretty good at rails, but watching them all do the same shit every single year that a lot of 16yo kids can do in their sleep is humorous and get boring. would it kill them to do a bs 270 on a dfd?

you never see kids who kill it at rails and are so so at jumps in the x-games, but thats because of x-games audience/market, comp scene in general, etc, etc. its been discussed a million times, oh well
 
It could easily kill their run, 270 to a dfd isn't exactly easy and hard to be consistant with. Just because 16yo kids can do a harder/similar rail trick, doesn't mean they are consistant and the pro skiers you are comparing them to.
 
And lets be honest, most comps are still judged mainly by jumps. Doing big or unique rail tricks doesn't really have as much reward as it does risk of ruining a run.
 
Non-skiers don't understand how hard rail tricks are, but with jumps, it's easier to see the difficulty. It makes sense for the X-Games and other big comps to value what the casual audience, who is the main percentage watching, likes to see. It sucks for people who really want to see some crazy rail tricks from guys we don't see putting out a bunch of rail edits to see what they can do.
 
right, i understand that, its a bummer.

if a bs270 out of a dfd could kill a run, so could their dub__ or their rightside trick. but i understand that they wouldn't try it b/c as you just said, they just aren't scored the same. not to mention it seems as though its easier to land some sort of double safety grab than a bs270 out of a dfd...

not trying to start a fight over who's better at rails than who. i just find it boring that for the last few years more than half the guys do basically the same tricks on the rail section. meanwhile the stuff on jumps has progressed significantly each year.
 
Bobby Brown is a big air skier, not a slopestyle skier. he does sick tricks off of the jumps, but when it comes to rails he doesn't do shit. i'm looking for the x-games slopestyle to be more well rounded as far as rails is concerned. big air skiers have their event, give the slopestyle to someone that can truly master both rails and jumps in one run.
 
Or even this the Team America edit...his Blind Swap-Blind 2 could quite possibly my favorite trick in that entire edit.
 
ok ok, my point is:

rail progression for the majority of the guys at X in last 4-5 years - nothing

jump progression at X in last 4-5 years - huge
 
Russ kills rails harder then anyone in comps he was doing lip 2 pretz 2 out on a round down bar at the new zealand open.
 
Injured last year and didn't ski comps. Hope he will get an invite later. Think he will surely be in big air if you see his latest results.
 
saying that bobby is not a slopestyle skier since he won a gold ans a silver medal at xgames last year make me think that you're joking!!!!

you know why slopestule riders don't need to be really good at rails cause in pretty much in all the slopestyle course it's always boxes with big jumps and not really street stuff so this is why all the riders are pretty at the same level cause this is not street rail but park boxes....

i remember back in the days at the x-games i think it was 2003, 2004 and 2005 where they just had rails in the slopestyle course no boxes just rails and even stairs set which was really sick
 
OOO hells yea they used to have a decent amount of quality ad tech rails. It definitely challenged the riders more which is why i think they have gotten away from that.

Am I imagining it or did they have a pretty beefy rainbow rail one year? Similar to the BBQ rail at keystone
 
competitions suck anyways. rails will never be as important as jumps in slopestyle, thats just the way it is. like said before, the majority of the skiers are too scared to try any real tricks on rails during their run because they arent as consistent. usually one of the rails is basically a jump anyways, whether its a cannon or disaster or something stupid
 
Please note: The invited athlete list is constantly being updated and is subject to change.

theres still hope lol
 
i seriously doubt schlopy will beat sammy if he goes and i am guessing that russ places second or first with bobby
 
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