The Freestyle Rundown - May 6, 2020
May 06, 2020·Freeski Park & Pipe
Monday had "May the 4th be with you," Tuesday had Cinco de Mayo, and May 6th has...well, in sports it's the daythat Babe Ruth hit his first ever major-league home run in 1915, and the day that Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes back in 1954, but here in 2020 it's Wednesday and that means it's the day that the latest edition of the Freestyle Rundown drops.
Feel free to add this info to the May 6th Wikipedia entry whenever you've got a minute ;)
We wanted to start things off this week with the USA's Eric Loughran getting some #respectthesend acknowledgements from Get Sendy, but for some reason their profile is private and we can't embed the clip. However, if you do follow them, click through HERE and check out one of the most epic saves in recent aerials history.
Luckily for you we've loaded up on backflips instead - starting with this clip that takes us back to the good ol' days before social distancing, when we could all get out there in the terrain park, hold hands with three of our best friends at the same time, and send a little backie off of our favourite booter all together...good times.
Nowadays though it's important to maintain at least two meters between you and your squad at all times - a safe distance which James "Woodsy" Woods and his homies are kind enough to demonstrate for us with this double-backie train from Cardrona a few months ago...
Of course if you want to be really safe, you could just keep the line - and the backie - all to yourself, like Klaus Finne did with this absolute beauty from back home in Norway last week. To be honest, with a line this perfect we would have a hard time sharing, too...
While we've seen lots of evidence that many of the Norwegians have been following Klaus's lead and enjoying the late season snowpack, his countryman Sebastian Schjerve is able to bring the shred home, sessioning one of the better backyard training set-ups we've come across so far. The dirt on the drop in kinda suggests Sebastian has had this thing built since well before the pandemic, but we bet it's really coming in handy these days...
If you can't ski in your backyard, hopefully you can at least work-out back there in the fresh air. If so, follow the lead of Aussie aerials star Danielle Scott and try to keep up with one of the fittest athletes in Freestyle. It starts out looking kind of fun, but they do call it a "core buster"...🤔
While Dani took last season off of competition, a load of her compatriots were out making waves all across the FIS Freestyle World Cup in 2018/19, and Snow Australia has nominated ski crosser Sami Kennedy-Sim, aerials skier Laura Peel and moguls ripper Jakara Anthony for their "Athlete of the Year" award...
It's been over three years now since we last saw Germany's Lisa Zimmermann in World Cup competition, and since then it looks like she's set herself up at a surf commune of some kind, while also working on her football (soccer) game?? Nice footwork, but her aim needs a little work...
If you're like a lot of us you're probably not skiing OR working out OR playing some other sport as much as you might like right now, in which case the US Freeski team has you covered with this list of their top 20 most popular movies, as per a team poll. Not a lot of Oscar winners in there, but some quality nonetheless...
Perhaps more importantly though, the US squad announced their freeski team nominations this week, and once again they'll be going into the 2020/21 competition season with some heavy artillary on the start list. A few of those athletes got together with the 2013 slopestyle world champ Tom Wallisch for an entertaining digital conversation last week, which you can check out here...
Before we wrap things up this week, we want to take a minute to give a massive shout-out to Kevin Rolland, who on April 30th marked one year since the life-threatening crash he suffered while trying to break the world record for highest freeski air. Incredibly, Kevin was back on skis in December and throwing doubles in the pipe in March, and we all can't wait until the day we see the French legend dropping back into a pipe for World Cup competition...
Oh, and one LAST last thing, make sure you check out the first of our classic competition series that we'll be running throughout the rest of the spring. Beginning today you can watch JF Chapuis' epic first win on home soil in Val Thorens (FRA), on the course that was named after him following his gold medal victory at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Check it out on our YouTube page, where it's streaming free for one week.
That's it, that's all for this week. Keep your chin up out there and we'll see ya back here in the Rundown in seven days.
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