California’s Mammoth Mountain Ski & Snowboard Team was recognized as the overall Club of the Year, an honor it also won in 2019. Photo: @usfreeskiteam
BEIJING — Park City skiers Colby Stevenson, Darien Stevens, and Alex Hall all placed high enough yesterday to move through to the finals round in the inaugural Freeski Big Air event in the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games.
The three Parkites have placed the highest of all the U.S. Ski and Snowboard competitors. Big air athletes make one jump per round incorporating spins, grabs, and tricks.
Stevenson, a Youth Sports Alliance athlete has recovered from a relatively recent car accident in which he sustained 30 fractures in his skull.
Hall is in second place for the men with 180.25 points, Stevenson is in fifth behind him with 174.25 points and Stevens is in eighth against the women with a 152.00 in the Big Air Olympic competition which continues tonight.
I've lived in Park City for 30 years but right off the starting line, my journalism professors expressed plaudits after class for writing more so about the small-town sports in the surrounding mountains than the urban updates they assigned. Therefore, I’m on par punning and penning Parkites' pastimes. Turning high and early through my career, I’ve worked communications for The Olympics, the Paralympics and the Special Olympics. Additionally, there's been National Geographic, Patagonia, NCAA, USA Nordic and the United States Library of Congress, so I guess you could say this ain't my first rodeo.