AVON\u00a0\u2014 Eagle County fans have a local athlete to cheer on in the very first televised contest of X Games 2019 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Catch Taylor Seaton, of Avon, dropping into the halfpipe starting at 8 p.m. local time on ESPN.<\/p>\n
Seaton said after receiving so much recognition from fans in our area at last year\u2019s X Games, he has been looking forward to this year from the moment he landed his final run in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always thankful to be able to compete in any contest I get invited to, but X Games is such a widely recognized event it really is the top goal of the season for me or anyone else in our sport,\u201d Seaton said. \u201cBeing a part of X Games really is the dream. I\u2019m just super humbled every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seaton said recent changes in the format of the event have him even more thankful for an invite.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey only invite 10 athletes, and they go straight to the televised final now, so it\u2019s showtime the second you drop in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Last year Seaton had his best X Games result in fifth place. But it wasn\u2019t the result that still has him excited about the performance a year later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did a run that I\u2019m personally proud of, landed it, then went back for the second run and did something completely different than the first run,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I landed that one, too. It felt amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seaton said he felt it was a matter of duty, in a way, to make his runs look completely different.<\/p>\n
\u201cX Games is the biggest show in freeskiing, so I wanted to really honor it by putting on a showcase of all my different tricks,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s a show we\u2019re watching, why make the second run a rerun?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe usual pattern in the sport is to do a tame run, then up it slightly by adding another 360 to one of the tricks in the runs,\u201d Seaton said. \u201cAs a fan I was just starting to get over that formula by the time X Games came around last season, so I thought I\u2019d try to set an example by doing something completely different in run 2. I don\u2019t know, maybe it will catch on, but even if I\u2019m the only skier who does that I feel like I\u2019m at least doing the best I can do to show my appreciation for just being there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just being there, for Seaton, never seems to be a sure proposition. He was an alternate at both the Dew Tour and the X Games this year, and was given an invite to both of those events only after having to wait for other athletes to drop out.<\/p>\n
\u201cRankings come into play, but only so much at the top-level events,\u201d Seaton said. \u201cSometimes I think I\u2019m the perpetual alternate because I\u2019m able to handle it and keep grinding and not stress too much about it. I\u2019ve made noise in the past about the rankings not matching up with the invite list, but when it ends up working out and you get in the contest that you feel you deserve to be in, you tend to care less about how you got there. At the end of the day we\u2019re competing in a judged contest so we\u2019re used to subjectivity coming into play.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his attitude, another factor that equips Seaton to be able to keep competing through the uncertainty of being big event skier is simple geography. Being from Avon, Seaton has spent much of his life in the Mecca of ski halfpipe contests: The professional circuit starts every year at Copper Mountain, then moves to Breckenridge, then heads to Aspen for the biggest event. Occasionally there\u2019s a Park City, Utah-area contest on the calendar, and Mammoth Mountain usually hosts an event, as well. The season has finished in France the last few years for the one event that can be difficult to get to.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween the help from being on the U.S. Freeskiing team, to the help I get from the Colorado community, I\u2019ve been able to keep doing it, and loving every minute of it,\u201d Seaton said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t plan on stopping any time soon, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n