{"id":803292,"date":"2020-01-21T17:36:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T00:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=377663"},"modified":"2020-01-21T17:36:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T00:36:34","slug":"dillons-chase-blackwell-to-realize-dream-of-competing-at-x-games-on-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/dillons-chase-blackwell-to-realize-dream-of-competing-at-x-games-on-wednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Dillon\u2019s Chase Blackwell to realize dream of competing at X Games on Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Longmont native and Dillon resident Chase Blackwell will realize a dream and compete at his first X Games on Wednesday evening in Aspen after growing up attending the event with his father and family friend as a young boy.<\/strong>
Courtesy Laax Open<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 For Chase Blackwell and the active members of the U.S. Halfpipe Team, this past weekend in Laax, Switzerland, was a dream experience.<\/p>\n

Five American snowboarders made Laax Open finals. Steamboat Springs native and Breckenridge resident Taylor Gold landed a never-before-done trick to make his first World Cup podium in five years<\/a> after battling health problems. And Blackwell, a 20-year-old from Longmont who now lives in Dillon, rode maybe the best halfpipe run of his young career to a strong sixth-place.<\/p>\n

To boot, the Laax Open superpipe itself was the stuff halfpipe riders dream of. Blackwell said the pipe walls felt 24-feet tall because of how steep and fast they were and because the pipe was \u201csuper dished out,\u201d meaning it didn\u2019t have as much of a flat bottom as, say, the Copper Grand Prix pipe last month or the X Games pipe this week.<\/p>\n

After it rode \u201calmost-scary-fast\u201d in practice, as Blackwell put it, light snowfall gave the pipe just enough fresh snow to allow riders to let it rip. You didn\u2019t have to be as exact on your lines. You didn\u2019t have to worry about slowing down in the flat bottom or losing an edge with too much speed. You could confidently put down the exact run you wanted.<\/p>\n

Blackwell did just that, following up a pair of 1080 degree rotations high up on the pipe with a front-side 1260 and then a third and final 1080. Blackwell said he\u2019d only landed that back-side 1080 maybe five times before. To attempt it after two 1080s and the 1260 was unprecedented for him. But on a night like that, when all the stars aligned over the Laax Open pipe, he\u2019d be cheating himself not to try it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coach was like, \u2018What\u2019s your plan?’\u201d Blackwell said. \u201cAnd I was kind of just like, \u2018We\u2019re going to go all-in. There\u2019s no reason to hold back.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackwell earned a sixth-place 70.25 for the run. It came in an over-arching moment where Gold shocked even his teammate Blackwell by attempting and landing the never-before-landed double Michalchuk 1080, which earned him a third-place score of 87.00. That moment of glory for Gold was the climax of a special night for a tight-knit U.S. Halfpipe Team that Blackwell said has emphasized the team element of togetherness heading into this week\u2019s X Games in Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to make it a different vibe with the team,\u201d Blackwell said. \u201cEven though it\u2019s an individual sport, we can be connected and feel the vibe off of everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Blackwell arrived in Aspen for his first X Games on Monday, in time to drop into the pipe he idolized as a kid. Years ago, X Games Aspen was the first snowboarding event Blackwell ever attended. Beginning at the age of 4, he joined his father in staying with a family friend in Carbondale to watch stars like Shaun White. It became a father-son tradition for several years.<\/p>\n

More than a decade later, Blackwell has a goal of making it out of Wednesday\u2019s elimination round, where five of 13 snowboarders will join three automatic qualifiers in Thursday evening\u2019s finals (8 p.m. on ESPN).<\/p>\n

Coming off Laax, Blackwell said the X Games pipe feels smaller, with more of a traditional flat bottom. On top of that, there\u2019s a new scoring system this year that takes into account a jam format. Blackwell said this means riders will lap the pipe for 45 minutes. In the end, judges will focus on each rider\u2019s best singular run for 80% of influence on their score. Then, Blackwell said, they\u2019ll factor in the final 20% based on a rider\u2019s creativity throughout the jam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be a little bit different, nothing that any of us have ever worked with,\u201d Blackwell said. \u201cBut it should be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Dillon resident Chase Blackwell inverts high above the halfpipe during one of his final-round runs through the Laax Open superpipe on Saturday night in Switzerland.<\/strong>
Courtesy Laax Open<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longmont native and Dillon resident Chase Blackwell will realize a dream and compete at his first X Games on Wednesday evening in Aspen after growing up attending the event with his father and family friend as a young boy.Courtesy Laax Open FRISCO \u2014 For Chase Blackwell and the active members of the U.S. Halfpipe Team, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-25 03:48:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}