E’ oggi che finalmente l’handplant non perfettamente chiuso di J-boy Adams viene premiato. Il giorno che molti aspettavano. Io sopratutto. E’ stato premiato lo stile e non il trick tecnico per la prima volta.
Sage Kotsenburg entra nella storia dello snowboard. E’ l’americano a vincere il primo oro nella storia delle Olimpiadi dello Snowboard slopestyle, ed è una vittoria importantissima per tutto lo snowboard mondiale.
Sage, ha chiuso una run incredibile, stile e tecnica mischiate assieme in un mix che ha fatto impazzire i giudici e il pubblico da tutto il mondo! Holy Crail! Il tuo trick vincente, un backside triple 1620 è stato qualche cosa di pazzesco!
Le polemiche non sono mancate, e alcuni giornalisti del settore si sono lamentati per le decisioni dei giudici chiosando addirittura un “Judges are on drugs?”.
Vince il meno atteso, vince chi non ha criticato Shaun White dopo la decisione di ritirarsi, vince chi poche ore prima aveva twittato ” Probabilmente il stile non verrà premiato, ma non cambierò mai la mia run per vincere una medaglia!”.
English Version
Former Olympian Todd Richards perhaps said it best on Twitter today with: “This is one of the best days for snowboarding ever.”
Sage Kotsenburg from the United States of America, perhaps against all odds, has won the first ever Olympic gold medal for slopestyle. Stale Sandbech from Norway and Canadian Mark McMorris took the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Earlier this morning, semi finals exploded onto our computer monitors, with the 21 riders left over from the qualification stages battling it out for one of four spots in the finals. Of those 21 riders, Billy Morgan, Sage Kotsenburg, Mark McMorris and Yuki Kadono joined the 8 riders from qualifications in today’s finals.
Sage Kotsenburg was the third rider to drop and stomped a ridiculously sick run: cab 270 to fakie, half cab 540 outn on the second rail, half cab double hand drag back 1 out on the third, massive cab 12 double japan, frontside double nosegrab 1080 and backside double 1260 nosegrab. It was perfectly executed, he sent it deep on the landings and most importantly, it oozed more style than Daniel Craig in that Casino Royal poker scene. The grabs were all fully tweaked and in our eyes at least, were a very welcome change to the robotic mute grabs that seem to plague many of the other top riders. It earned him a whopping 93.5 from the judges.
We’re so stoked for Sage and the fact that his run here today will go down in history and inspire countless youngsters getting into snowboarding. And while the judges were definitely a little all over the place with their scoring, there’s no denying that they just did snowboarding a massive favour by rewarding Sage so highly for his run.
Go Sage!