Last night was the first SuperPipe practice and all the noise circled around the defending champ. His run for 2008 is completely different. Unlike every other year Hall has competed in pipe at Winter X, he now starts his run from the right side of the pipe and spins an unnatural rightside 900 off the left wall. Last year, he pretty much won SuperPipe by throwing an unprecedented switch 1080 off the first hit on the right side of the wall dropping in from the left.
"I plan on throwing two 10s at the bottom of my run, and possibly throwing in a 12 somewhere in there," said Hall at the bottom of the pipe, after he finished practice for the night feeling more than confident and comfortable with his run."Man I feel so good right now."
His competitors, on the other hand, seem to be refocusing their attention on the race for silver. "I don't even know why I'm competing in pipe," lamented New Zealand's Jossi Wells, who is certainly no slouch in the pipe. "Tanner's run is retarted."
Standing alongside Hall's coach and confidant, filmmaker Eric Iberg, head judge Josh Loubek simply shook his head in disbelief. "How can you deny Tanner's originality right now?" remarked Loubek. "I mean, after watching this new run, his [winning] run last year would score like an 86 or something—and [it] scored a 95 last year!" Meanwhile, as the buzz from photographers, team managers, and other industry peeps swirled around Hall, Dumont seemed to pay no attention. In business-like fashion, he skied his run, ignored all the gossip at the bottom of the pipe, and hopped right on to an idling snowmobile to go for another round. Not much appears to be different in Dumont's run than last year, save for a few more feet of amplitude, which now puts him in another galaxy when he soars off the first hit.
What will Dumont need to do to counter Hall's new run? According to friend and live P.A. announcer Luke Van Valin, Dumont plans on possibly throwing two 1260s. Wells thinks Dumont might kill himself since he wants to win so badly. In any case, don't expect the 21 year old to be intimidated by Hall. It's evident that he is tired of the Tanner talk and wants his gold back.
