The higher, the better for freestyle skier Hudak
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- Created on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 00:41
- Written by Brian Gomez
BY BRIAN GOMEZ, THE GAZETTE
Hit after hit, Jen Hudak wants tons of height. On skis, in a 22-foot frozen cylinder known as a halfpipe, that’s what sets her apart from her fast-developing competition.
The Olympic hopeful has progressed into one of the world’s most accomplished freestyle skiers because of her unmatchable amplitude, and she’ll attempt to again rise to the top at the Nike 6.0 Open, a Winter Dew Tour event that begins Wednesday in Breckenridge.
Check out a photo gallery from Tuesday's practice
Snowy conditions Friday at Copper Mountain limited the amount of height Hudak, 24, of Park City, Utah, was able to generate on her 900, a jump with 2 ½ rotations, in a second-place finish behind Canadian Rosalind Groenewoud at the U.S. Halfpipe Grand Prix. The runner-up showing qualified her for the world championships in February in Park City.
Forecasters call for a 60 percent chance of snow Thursday in Breckenridge, when Hudak will compete in the freestyle skiing superpipe preliminary round, and a 30 percent chance Saturday, when the finals are contested. Snow or no snow, Hudak anticipates “as good a competition as we’ll have” next month at the Winter X Games in Aspen, where she’s the defending skiing superpipe champion and a winner of four medals in as many years.
A few years ago, Hudak and Canadian Sarah Burke, a three-time Winter X gold medalist in the superpipe, were the lone women capable of performing 900s. When Hudak claimed a superpipe gold at Winter X Games Europe in March in Tignes, France, seven of eight women threw 900s, and a handful of women executed the maneuver at the Grand Prix.
Video: Hudak provides a sneak peek at the superpipe
“There are more girls that are starting to figure out how to go big,” Hudak said. “For me, that was my strength when I first came into the scene, but I didn’t have it under control, and I would land on the deck a lot or pop too hard. … It takes a lot of years of experience to be able to have that amplitude and control the amplitude to allow it to work for you.”
Fully recovered from March 2008 surgery on torn cartilage and ligaments in her left knee that required a nine-month rehabilitation, Hudak feels comfortable letting loose on a pair of 900s in a seven-trick run. She even has toyed with a 1,080, a three-rotation jump that she did in winning the World Skiing Invitational in April in Whistler, British Columbia.
“I definitely thrive in gigantic halfpipes,” like the one in Breckenridge that’s comparable to Aspen’s halfpipe, said Hudak, a four-time halfpipe national champion and the back-to-back Association of Freeskiing Professionals World Tour halfpipe champion.
“I’ve gotten a lot more mileage on some of my harder tricks, like my 900,” Hudak added. “It’s positioning me well for the rest of the season – to be able to improve and learn new tricks. … The run I’m doing now is becoming a standard run for me, and at one point, it was the best run that I could imagine doing. So that’s a really good place to be.”
NIKE 6.0 OPEN
When: Wednesday through Sunday
Where: Breckenridge Ski Resort
What: The first of three Winter Dew Tour events, with men’s and women’s competition in snowboard superpipe, snowboard slopestyle, skiing superpipe and skiing slopestyle
Admission: Free
NBC schedule: 12:30-2 p.m. Saturday, 2-4 p.m. Sunday
On the Web: www.allisports.com/winter-dew-tour
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