Kaya Turski Takes Gold at Winter X Games!

Women's slopestyle podium L to R: Keri Herman, Kaya Turski, Grete Eliassen


The first gold medal of Winter X Games 14 was just awarded and it went to Orage's own Kaya Turski who raised the bar for women's slopestyle today finishing more than 11 points ahead of the competition.

Kaya going big on a 540 off the second jump

Keri Herman was one of the first ladies to drop in and her run set the bar for things to come. After a clean trip through the upper rail gardens Keri landed switch off the canon box taking it into a switch 5, 360, and 540 on the jumps with clean style and stomped landings earning a score of 85.00 which she held on to for the remaining two runs and earned a second place finish.

Grete Eliassen

Grete Eliassen took the third place podium spot after being the only girl to spin over the hitching post feature and consistently landing nine's off the money booter.

Kaya switch 5 on the first booter

In an interview Kaya said that her biggest challenge was getting over her own nerves in the start get before the competition, but with a first run score that was good enough for gold that problem seemed to disappear pretty quickly.

After openly not being satisfied with her style from run number one, Kaya cleaned things up and one-upped her own score for run number two.

Kaya about to grease a 270 onto this box

At the end of run three it came down to Sarah Burke as the only competitor remaining who could shake up the podium. After a clean start to her run Sarah put it all on the line and went for a 1260 on the last jump but failed to put it to her feet.

Sarah Burke

With the gold medal already secured Kaya opted not to take what could have been an easy victory lap. Instead, she continued to throw down taking her 450 off the canon box into a switch 9, 540, and switch 7 through the jump line topping her own score once again taking it all the way up to a 96.66.

Kaya looking pretty stoked as the crowd reacted to her third run

Kaya-Bamba!

Photos: Felix Rioux

Day 0 at Winter X Games 14

Tomorrow, January 28th, Winter X Games 14 kicks off for the 9th straight year in Aspen, Colorado. If tomorrow is only the first day of X, then what where the past three days in Aspen?  So far we've seen huge airs, new doubles, massive carnage, womens superpipe prelims, and rumors of a remote throttle and complete no-hander backflip on a snowmobile... and it hasn't even started yet!  Here's some behind the scenes action from the first three "unofficial" days of Winter X Games 14.

MONDAY: DAY -2

As I closed my tray table and returned my seat back to it's full upright position I could already see the olympic sized halfpipe lit up from the airplane window.  Looking up at it from the base of Buttermilk was even better, although temps close to -23°C made it feel a lot more like a typical day in Montreal, not Aspen.

Banks Gilberti hoping that he can compete as an alternate

Monday night was the first of six days of practice for ski superpipe.  Why so much practice? For starters, the walls are about 4' higher and 50' longer than what we've seen at the first two stops of the Winter Dew Tour. That translates into more transition, bigger airs, and extra hit(s) for comp time.

A taco joint sponsoring a halfpipe event? What a coincidence!

Something else that's new from last year, skiing superpipe will be the grande finale of Winter X Games 14 closing out the event Sunday night live on ESPN.

Colby West's new facemask. 

Monday nights practice session marked Taylor Seaton's return to halfpipe competition after an ankle injury that has kept him on the sidelines since last summer.  Like most of the riders, Taylor was just working on memorizing the transition and stringing together straight airs that were bigger and bigger the further he went down the pipe.

Welcome back Taylor Seaton!

It's a pretty safe bet to say that the top three runs that make up the women's podium later this week will all have at least one 900 in them, and the ladies were already starting to step things up as the five hour practice session progressed.  

Jess Cumming getting ready to drop in

Quick sled laps up the pipe meant the athletes were getting plenty of runs, and after dialing some 5's and 7's Jess started to throw some 9's.  Unfortunately, after a backseat landing Jess tweaked her knee and had to be taken to Vail for an MRI. We're still waiting for the results, but regardless of the verdict we wish her the best of luck and a speedy recovery with hopes that she can get back on her feet for the final stop of the Dew Tour at Mount Snow next week.

Banks' helmet also made the carnage list. Luckily his head was not in it when the snowmobile ran it over.

TUESDAY: DAY -1

Tuesday morning the pipe was open early. The riders were getting increasingly more comfortable in the 22 footer and we saw a lot more tricks thrown down than the test session the night before.

Xavier Bertoni mid flat-3

Simon Dumont took one of the worst spills in the pipe that I've ever seen, decking out and hitting his head on a double.  After a catscan and a couple days of rest I think we can still count on seeing him back in the pipe for finals.

Tuesday afternoon the athletes got to take their first runs on the slopestyle course, which for the Orage team means Phil Casabon and Kaya Turski who are coming off 5th and 3rd place finishes at last year's X Games.


Kaya Turski

The course starts out with two sets of rail options followed by a south park Mammoth-esq bar/stall/rail that  Phil has been using as a launch pad for nose butters. Next up is the choice of either a cannon box remenescient of X Games 13 or a big gap to rainbow rail. A three pack of booters finish off the course, all of which are pretty big and close together, making stomped landings almost mandatory to finish a run.

Phil Casabon

Here's the video from the ContourHD that Banks has mounted on his pole in that last photo:

Fresh off the podium at Snowbasin (and not surprisingly) Tom Wallisch and Bobby Brown have been stand outs during practice, with Bobby's switch double misty 1260 being one of the most talked about tricks so far this week.

Bobby Brown - Switch Double Misty 1260


Tom Wallisch rodeo off the canon box

Snow Park Technologies has been taking constant feedback from the riders has been adjusting the features accordingly each night. It's that kind of attention to detail that will really make this one of the best slopestyle courses this season.

WEDNESDAY: DAY 0

For the last day of training before X Games officially gets going the schedule was reversed and skiers got to session the slope course in the morning.

Casabon was throwing different tricks on the jumps each run, so this is probably left/right 5, 7, 9 or 10. Probably switch. 


For the eight ladies in slopestyle this was the last practice session before tomorrows final (no prelims). Kaya had the rail section consistently dialed ending it with a 450 off the canon box into a switch 7 on the first jump.

We didn't see much action aside from straight airs off the last jump in practice, but if the weather (and speed) can hold out for tomorrow we're pretty stoked to see what the women will throw down.

Kaya warming up with a switch 5

Three hours, lunch, and a press conference later we were back at the pipe for a night practice session and women's superpipe elimination.

Marg worked this into a double later on

For the first time so far in practice Xavier Bertoni looked like he was on a serious mission (well, not that serious as you've probably seen from followus.tv) to defend his gold medal.

The Double Flip: great for points, not so great for photos

Not seeming to care about the heavy snowfall Xavier sessioned in a tee shirt the whole time and consistently landed one of the biggest doubles in the field.  Dropping in half way down the pipe Xav added back to back left and right 1260's to his repertoire.  Now he just needs to put all that together into one run for Sunday's final, and he still has three more days of practice to make it happen.

Taylor Seaton continued his comeback and threw 9's for the first time since his injury and also took the opportunity to drop in switch a few times.

Taylor Seaton switch 7 on the first hit

Nerd alert: This year the riders are 'wired' with some kind of sensor so that their actual height from each hit is recorded, and tonights women's superpipe elimination was the first time we saw it in action. Roz G broke the invisible height meter twice with a 12' air on her first run and then topped her own record with a 14' air on the first hit of her second run.

Anais spinning a 900 in practice

Amplitude alone was not enough to take the top spot heading into the women's final. Megan Gunning scored a 90.00 on her first run with an true inverted corked out 900, solid grabs in her 540s, and a 720 mute and switch 5 at the bottom of the pipe that made her untouchable for the rest of the comp.

C'est bon!

Anais Caradeaux finished in forth with left and right 5's and a mixed bag of grabs and alleyoop straight airs. Jen Hudak, Mirjam Jaeger, and Sarah Burke filled the remainder of the 6 spots in finals with Grete Eliassen just barely getting bumped out by Burke in the last run of the night.


 ...with Matt Margetts? Yes please!

With three solid days of training under wraps we're ready to kick off day 1 of Winter X Games 14 tomorrow with men's slopestyle elimination and women's slopestyle finals. Stay tuned for an update on Phil and Kaya at orage.com, and for live streaming video and the full TV broadcast schedule visit xgames.com.


Photos: Felix Rioux

Disclaimer: This update was made possible by caffeinated beef jerky (yes, it does exist), Monster "coffee", Muscle Milk, and a partial case of Red Bull for keeping me awake until 6am.  The same ingredients are also responsible for any type-o's, grammatical errors, or anything else that doesn't make sense.

Winter X 14 Competition Preview

Fresh off the last stop of the Winter Dew Tour in Snowbasin, UT, eight athletes from the Orage team have arrived in Aspen for the 14th edition of the Winter X Games.  Anais Caradeaux, Jess Cumming, Kaya Turski,  Xavier Bertoni, Phil Casabon, Banks Gilberti, Matt Margetts, and Taylor Seaton are all looking for a spot in the finals which will be broadcast live on ESPN this weekend.

Here's a little mashup of what our team will be throwing down made up of whatever recent comp footage I could find...

Photographer John Vandervalk had a chance to spend a bluebird afternoon with Breckenridge locals Anais Caradeaux and Banks Gilberti earlier this week as they trained for the superpipe event.

Anais Caradeaux

Apparently some hutony's were seen this day also. Hmmm...

Anais stepping up the amplitude

Banks is still an alternate to compete but if time permits during the prelim on Saturday night hopefully he can make it in.

Xavier Bertoni testing the superpipe at Buttermilk

Maybe one of the biggest stories moving into Sundays halfpipe final will be to see if Xavier Bertoni can re-claim a spot on the podium after coming out of nowhere last year to take the gold ahead of Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont.  Xav has been looking pretty solid so far in practice but with the biggest halfpipe so far this season and three days of training left all the athletes are holding back their "A" game until the weekend.  Unlike Anais and Banks, Xavier spent most his time training in a more non-traditional way between last weeks Dew Tour stop and X.

Also making a return to the comp scene is Taylor Seaton who has only been on skis for two weeks coming off an ankle injury this summer.  Having a pristine 22ft pipe courtesy of snow park technologies and six days of training is a pretty good way to start things off! We'll have more on Taylors return and an update from Buttermilk later tonight...

Snowbasin Winter Dew Tour POV Edit

Last week at the second stop of the Winter Dew Tour in Snowbasin our team had the opportunity to test out a couple of the new ContourHD1080p helmet cams from VholdR.com. It took a day or two to get some usable shots but here's what we ended up with...

The whole Orage team will be rockin these by the end of the season so more POV edits to come!

FollowUs.tv Streching & Flow Riding

Un petit bonus marrant, avec une session d'étirement assez physique et une session Flow à Ogden.
Merci Orage.

www.followus.tv
FollowUs.tv Streching & Flow Riding

First Urban Shoot w/ Casabon, Will, JF, and Level 1

I'm just on my way to Vail, CO right now with Klesk to hit this airbag jump we've been hearing about. We were just at the Winter Dew Tour where I did my first pipe comp (and first pipe run this year, lol). Because Dew Tour wasn't having a girls slope comp, I figured I may as well get in there and get in the comp mode for X in a couple of weeks. Since Kristi's driving I may as well take advantage and catch up a bit!

Kaya Turski... halfpipe skier

Wellll, it's been a pretty crazy 4 weeks. Early season I was training in Mammoth (fave place on earth right now!) and then I headed home for Christmas to see the family and friends. This year I'm really stoked because I am lucky enough to film with the Level1 crew, and that's what I did right after Christmas in Montreal and Quebec. It's been a dream to work with those guys for a long time and when I heard there would be an Orage/Level1 urban shoot with Phil Casabon, Will Wesson, Jf Houle and I was really excited to say the least.

Time to get setup...

I've actually never really done any urban (other than on my skates back in the day) so I was a little anxious as to how it would turn out but at least I knew I had a really cool and supportive crew to work with.

Freedle making use of the drop-in ramp

We started off in Montreal on the 28th and the first feature we hit was a really mellow and fun up ledge/rail. Great way to start, built my confidence up a bit.

Will Wesson making things look easy

We shot some other pretty mellow things, but for the most part it was all pretty big and challenging stuff, which made it really fun when I got the trick! My heart was definitely pumping for most of this trip, hah! One of the more memorable moments in Montreal was on New Year's eve where we hit this drop to down drop rail (which was at least 20 feet high).

Happy new year!

I definitely didn't think I would do it but ended up telling my self I had to end the year (and start the new year) on a good note. Soo stoked when I got it!

Day 1 in Quebec

A few days later we headed to Quebec and stayed in a sweet little place right in Old Quebec. We had a lot of fun there and got some really cool shots there, can't say too much cuz we need the element of surprise right?

scoping an old skate spot, head+ drops seem to be the theme of this trip

All in all, it was a great first urban trip and I feel like we couldn't have had a better crew. The boys absolutely killed it and it was really motivating to watch them.

Phil Casabon is definitely one of my fave skiers right now… soo legit!

B-dog goin wild

Halfway to Vail, damn I wish we were there already.. It's been a lot of flying and driving in the past few days. Ready to hit that airbag jump! Gotta get some tricks dialled for X…. wooohooo!

Hope you're all having fun!

peace out
Kaya

Photos: Felix Rioux

FollowUs.tv ep3 Dew Tour

FollowUs.tv ep3 ParkCity & DewTour Snowbasin

Voici le 3ème épisodes de FollowUs.tv, avec au programme:
- un peu de rails à Keyston
- des entraînements dans le gros pipe de Park City
- Le deuxième stop du Dew Tour à Snowbasin.

Jeux concours sur followUs.tv
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