{"id":803434,"date":"2020-01-24T12:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T19:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck\/"},"modified":"2020-01-24T12:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T19:16:00","slug":"at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck\/","title":{"rendered":"At first competition after Dew Tour crash, Yater-Wallace hits X Games ski knuckle huck"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.3476702508961\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-377869-966\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/xskihuck-atd-012420-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/xskihuck-atd-012420-1024x684.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times | Torin Yater Wallace skis to the bottom of the feature during the Ski Knuckle Huck Final on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Yater Wallace finished sixth in the event while Park City rookie Colby Stevenson took home the gold medal.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"0\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"11\">\n<p><strong>Torin Yater Wallace skis to the bottom of the feature during the Ski Knuckle Huck Final on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Yater Wallace finished sixth in the event while Park City rookie Colby Stevenson took home the gold medal.<\/strong><br \/>Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/01\/xskihuck-atd-012420-1024x684.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Torin Yater Wallace skis to the bottom of the feature during the Ski Knuckle Huck Final on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Yater Wallace finished sixth in the event while Park City rookie Colby Stevenson took home the gold medal.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">ASPEN \u2013 Had it been a more serious competition, Torin Yater-Wallace might have opted to go home. But, despite being only an hour or so off the plane from Tokyo, the Aspen freeskier went ahead and returned to X Games for Thursday\u2019s ski knuckle huck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">It was a low-key return to the lights of Buttermilk for one of the sport\u2019s biggest stars, who missed most of last season because of a gruesome injury suffered at the Dew Tour at Breckenridge Ski Resort in December 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI didn\u2019t really think I was going to do it, because it\u2019s just a knuckle,\u201d Yater-Wallace said. \u201cI booked my trip to Japan and then they hit me up. I wasn\u2019t going to change my flight and I don\u2019t know, I just did it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Yater-Wallace, the 24-year-old who grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley and won the first of his six X Games superpipe medals when he was only 15, wasn\u2019t sure if he would ever compete in X Games again. Going into the 2018-19 competition season, his plan had been to spend it in the halfpipe before walking away from the discipline for good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">This was all expedited when Yater-Wallace crashed on his first run in the Dew Tour\u2019s modified halfpipe in Breckenridge essentially shattering both of his heels, among other maladies. He spent weeks in and out of the hospital, riding the couch in the time in between.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">He made his return to snow on Nov. 7, roughly 11 months after his injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cRiding hardpack was a battle at first, but now my feet are feeling a lot better,\u201d Yater-Wallace said. \u201cSo skiing resort and skiing park is feeling pretty normal again, but it\u2019s sure nice to just ride powder all year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Yater-Wallace, who skis for Red Bull, spent about two weeks filming in Japan before returning home Thursday, landing only a few hours before the scheduled knuckle huck competition. Knuckle huck, an event where athletes throw a single trick off the rounded part, or knuckle, of the big air jump, made its X Games debut in 2019 with the snowboarders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Thursday was ski knuckle huck\u2019s X Games maiden voyage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt\u2019s pretty mellow. I don\u2019t know if the public can really relate to it, but for the skiers it\u2019s a niche little category that\u2019s cool,\u201d Yater-Wallace said of the event. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if I was gonna, just being tired flying home from Tokyo today. But practice felt good and it felt nice to be skiing, so I went ahead and did it and I\u2019m glad I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Yater-Wallace didn\u2019t have a favorite run in the 20-minute jam session, saying none \u201cof them were that great, really.\u201d The judges basically agreed, as he finished sixth in the eight-skier event, won by Park City\u2019s Colby Stevenson, a 20-year-old X Games rookie. He held off Swedish big air legend Henrik Harlaut for the inaugural crown, or should we say knuckles, as the winner of knuckle huck does in fact receive a pair of gold knuckles as a trophy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Winning or losing, or even competing, wasn\u2019t important to Yater-Wallace, who seems to have moved on from that part of his life. He\u2019s about making films \u2014 he\u2019s headed to Canada soon for more skiing \u2014 but can\u2019t rule out a return to X Games in the future, although probably not in halfpipe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cMaybe I was hoping one day for slopestyle or big air. I was still hoping for that at some point. But right now I\u2019m just focusing on making this movie,\u201d Yater-Wallace said. \u201cBut it\u2019s nice to be out here, under the lights and all. I don\u2019t really have any desire to compete, but it\u2019s always nice to be back. Hanging under the lights here will always be special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The men\u2019s ski superpipe contest, sans Yater-Wallace, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sunday. Fellow Aspen skier Alex Ferreira will compete, looking to defend his gold medal from 2019. Ferreira goes straight to finals for having been on last year\u2019s podium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The snowboard knuckle huck contest is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Sunday, right before the men\u2019s ski superpipe final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><em>This story is from AspenTimes.com<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/at-first-competition-after-dew-tour-crash-yater-wallace-hits-x-games-ski-knuckle-huck\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Torin Yater Wallace skis to the bottom of the feature during the Ski Knuckle Huck Final on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Yater Wallace finished sixth in the event while Park City rookie Colby Stevenson took home the gold medal.Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Show CaptionsHide Captions ASPEN \u2013 Had it been a more serious competition, Torin [&hellip;]<\/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-803434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 18:58:50","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\/803434","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=803434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}