If you ever hear anyone doubt the talent of snowboarders, tell them to go and watch the Halfpipe event at this year’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
In the event, competitors scooted their way down a halfpipe roughly 160 meters in length. The slope is between 17 and 18 degrees – not exactly flat – and the height of the pipe is a little under 7 meters.
They fly their way down this pipe, launching themselves huge distances into the air while travelling at some serious speeds.
Impressive, and frightening, enough in itself, but combine it with some of the outrageous manoeuvres they perform and its enough to make it seem more like a video game than reality.
Many of the guys launch themselves in excess of 5 meters into the air from the top of the pipe on their first couple of jumps. For those of you who aren’t mathematicians, this puts them well over 10 meters off the ground at their peak.
The pipe itself is 6.7 meters, and the jump can propel riders over 5 meters high – add these together and you’ve got a total of around 12.
To put this into perspective, a regular story in a building is generally between 3 and 4 meters, meaning these guys are close to 4 stories high while they’re tumbling around like a spinning top.
To make things worse (or better?), ‘tumbling around like a spinning top’ doesn’t even go close to doing justice to the things they’re doing in the air.
Every move seems impossible to complete without landing on your face, yet they rarely fall. In Shaun White’s, and the event’s, final run, he scored 97.75 to take home a third Halfpipe Olympic Gold Medal. In it, he completed back-to-back 1440’s. Admittedly this was an outrageously good run, but let that sink in for a moment.
Red Bull built Shaun White A Private Superpipe in 2009
Again, for those of you who aren’t mathematically inclined or who aren’t familiar with snowboarding terminology, 1440 degrees is four times more than 360.
This means he spun his entire body around four times while flying through the air, before not only landing on his feet but landing with enough speed to repeat the same manoeuvre just a second later on the opposite side of the pipe. If that isn’t one of the most impressive things any person has ever done I’ll go away.
Of course, with these ridiculous tricks comes plenty of inherent risks, adding bravery to the list of impressive traits these guys possessed.
In this event itself, 16-year-old (yes, 16!!) Japanese rider Yuto Totsuka landed flat on the lip of the pipe, and it looked like his body should have snapped right in two. He slid down the mountain for a little, eventually got stretchered off and was taken to the hospital. Turns out he was okay, but my God that must’ve hurt.
Shaun White himself knows the dangers all too well. Just a few months ago, he was practising the trick that would eventually win him Gold at PyeongChang, only he didn’t quite pull it off like he did in this event.
Instead, his board landed awkwardly on the lip of the pipe, and his face followed. Remember, he was around five meters in the air during the trick, so landing on his face inevitably did some damage. He received 62 stitches.
These guys are freaks. As talented as they are insane, their bravery and ability to perform ridiculous manoeuvres under huge amounts of pressure cannot be undersold.
If it isn’t the most impressive event at the Winter Olympics then I don’t know what is, and it speaks volume for the dedication and talent involved at the top of professional snowboarding.
Did you watch the Olympics? what were your thoughts about the halfpipe? Leave a comment below or share this post on Facebook and Instagram
PyeongChang Olympic Halfpipe
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