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The Roar

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The excitement and challenge of freeskiing

A freeskiier in action (Photo: Flickr)
Expert
19th December, 2014
1

Freeskiing is exciting as it is dangerous, and one of the biggest challenges of the sport is to be able to push the limits while trying to stay injury free.

Skiing as well as pretty much any sport has its own potential for injury and it multiplies significantly when someone pushes their limits of what they can do.

At the same time the excitement, fun and the feeling of accomplishment from pushing yourself is all worth it.

Pushing the limits is at some point going to catch up with you. Chad’s Gap, as it’s known, was probably one of the craziest back country jumps in the world back in the day, and one of the most dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eitvXCqe4E

But at the same time you try not to think too much about what can go wrong and more about what will go right, or you’ll never have the balls to hit anything like that.

When it comes down to training for competitions athletes constantly need to push themselves to remain competitive so they can achieve the results they need.

A majority of the time it works out. It may take a bit of time to nail a trick that you have been working on. I can attest to that. I have been working on a new trick for almost two months now and it’s only just getting to the stage where I can land it enough to feel confident enough to put it in a competitive run.

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Despite all the crashes I have had, nailing it in competition still makes it worth trying. That’s the excitement factor for myself and fellow athletes.

This counts for athletes that are filming as well, generally a good film section will have some of the most risky but exciting features in it, whether it may be skiing a huge mountain with a 90 foot natural cliff or sliding rails on a stair set in the streets in some city. All of this goes into making a impressive film that gets people excited about skiing.

The video above is a great example. Tom Walisch is an amazing skier, who has amazing success in competitions but also releases some of the most creative and intense film sections known.

And this is a great example where all the risk of injury pays off to release an amazing film. It’s all a part of why I love the sport so much.

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