Denver Big Air a quality show despite long odds
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 26 January 2011 04:33
- Written by Brian Gomez
BY BRIAN GOMEZ, THE GAZETTE
DENVER – An action sports event that lacked a superstar like Shaun White. High-priced tickets and near-freezing conditions that prompted some fans to stay home. A makeshift ramp full of artificial snow that looked a whole lot more towering on TV than in person.
It resulted in a recipe for disaster Tuesday at Denver Big Air, yet the much-hyped skiing and snowboarding competition opened with a bang at Civic Center Park, where dozens of athletes performed high-flying tricks and eye-popping jumps to thunderous applause.
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Denver became the first U.S. city to stage the latest craze sanctioned by the International Ski Federation, which had brought Big Air legs throughout Europe in recent years. And it didn’t disappoint, despite temperatures that dipped to 33 degrees, with a ramp hitting 106 feet tall, 296 feet long and 70 feet wide in the shadow of the city and county building.
The two-time defending Olympic halfpipe gold medalist, White shunned Denver Big Air in favor of the Winter X Games, which start Thursday and run through Sunday in Aspen. Taking after White were Breckenridge skier Bobby Brown, a two-time Winter X winner last year, and Jacob Wester of Sweden, the defending London Big Air skiing champion. Skiers T.J. Schiller (knee) and Tom Wallisch (shoulder) were sidelined with injuries.
So for $45 a head, thousands of spectators, down from the 20,000 fans projected by the Metro Denver Sports Commission in October and the 12,000 fans estimated by the group in November, saw 14 brand-name teams of mostly unknown skiers. There were an array of moves, from 900s to 1,260s, with various grabs, with two or three flips, with backward takeoffs and landings – and 28 snowboarders are lined up Wednesday for World Cup points.
The final cost for event organizers? About $1 million, even though 17 corporate sponsors were on board, most notably Bud Light, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Sprint and Visa. Roughly half of the profits from Sunday’s tape-delayed broadcast on NBC go to the International Ski Federation, and about 40 percent go to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. The bill for concerts by Switchfoot and Colorado Springs-formed OneRepublic also wasn’t cheap.
“The lighting around the (building) changing constantly, it’s kind of hard to focus on the jump,” Aspen skier Nate Berkel joked following his first-round run, noting that the urban setup is “opening so many different eyes. People don’t realize what’s going down on the mountain because they’re not on the mountain. … I’m glad these people get to see it.”
“The crowd gets you pumped up,” Summit County skier Kolby Ward added, “and you’re like, ‘I got this! I got this! I can do something bigger and better.’ That’s what you got to do if you want to be on top. … Everyone is cheering. It’s a good time.”
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