{"id":803825,"date":"2020-02-04T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=378476"},"modified":"2020-02-04T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T02:05:00","slug":"us-snowboarder-taylor-gold-riding-high-ready-for-dew-tour-modified-superpipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/us-snowboarder-taylor-gold-riding-high-ready-for-dew-tour-modified-superpipe\/","title":{"rendered":"US snowboarder Taylor Gold riding high, ready for Dew Tour modified superpipe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Steamboat Springs native and Breckenridge resident Taylor Gold, seen here at the Laax Open in January, is hopeful he can land his new double-Michalchuk 1080 trick on the modified superpipe at Copper Mountain Resort at this week’s Dew Tour.<\/strong>
Courtesy Laax Open<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 What does it feel like when, after three years of chronic knee problems, a snowboarder lands a transcendent trick in Laax, Switzerland, wins an X Games gold and takes a silver medal at Mammoth Mountain in three consecutive weekends?<\/p>\n

\u201cLike redemption, honestly,\u201d Taylor Gold said Saturday. \u201cI\u2019ve been working on this knee thing for basically three years. I (injured) it in 2016 and, since then, up until sort of part of last season and then through the summer, I couldn\u2019t really ride the way I wanted to. It would always hurt with the big impacts and stuff I needed to take riding the (half)pipe. So it was really validating.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the past three globe-trotting weeks were full of redemption for the Breckenridge resident, a podium at Sunday\u2019s Dew Tour modified superpipe event<\/a> would make for a resounding statement after putting the final touches on his physical therapy at Howard Head Sports Medicine in Breckenridge in the summer.<\/p>\n

Five years after he last podiumed at a World Cup event, the Steamboat Springs native reached the podium at Laax last month on the strength of landing his double Michalchuk 1080. It\u2019s was a never-before-landed trick that combines the flat-spinning, on-axis backflip-like element of a Michalchuk, with Gold inverting it twice while going for three 360-degree spins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout having ever seen anybody do it, I didn\u2019t know if it was possible,\u201d Gold said.<\/p>\n

A week after Laax, Gold landed the new trick on the first hit of his final run at X Games in Aspen. And it came despite the pressure of fewer than two minutes remaining on the clock at the X Games\u2019 first snowboard superpipe session competition. The trick bumped Gold from bronze-medal position to his first X Games gold. Then in Mammoth, Gold again landed the trick.<\/p>\n

Whether you watch Gold going for the trick on the Laax, Aspen or Mammoth pipes, it\u2019s clear it is a terrifyingly blind toe-edge landing. Through his goggles, Gold\u2019s eyeballs come inches from the halfpipe\u2019s icy walls immediately after he torques his core enough to add a backside 180 to get the trick around.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

After all his knee issues \u2014 including breaking his kneecap into six pieces \u2014 why would the now-veteran 26-year-old snowboarder conceive of a new trick that is so blind, so dangerous, so scary?<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself a very calculated risk taker,\u201d Gold said. \u201cSo I felt I took all the proper steps. I was talking to my coach (Rick Bower), and he thought it would work. And at a certain point with any new trick, you\u2019re going to have to say \u2018screw it\u2019 and just try it. \u2026 I just figured if I was going to go through the trouble of learning a new trick, might as well be a trick I am the only one doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The trick, which Gold said he landed only about seven times before hucking it at Laax, is one that combines the snowboarding style of the Michalchuk with the kind of spin-it-to-win-it element that has taken over the sport in recent years. In a way, it\u2019s a perfect trick for halfpipe snowboarding in an era when more athletes and fans want to see less of the spin tricks and more flair on more inventive courses, such as Woodward Copper\u2019s modified superpipe at this year\u2019s Dew Tour.<\/p>\n

But is the new trick something Gold can see himself doing on the atypical Dew Tour course, which features mirrored transition elements above 300 feet of a 22-foot-high superpipe?<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

After Gold landed it in December on Woodward Copper\u2019s standard superpipe during Grand Prix practice, he\u2019s focused on figuring out a way to land it on the modified pipe course. If he does, it\u2019ll put him in ideal position to podium against a group of the world\u2019s best halfpipe riders, including American fan-favorite Danny Davis, dominant Australian star Scotty James, Japanese high-flyer Yuto Totsuka, snowboarding elder statesman Louie Vito, Swiss stars Pat Burgener and Jan Scherrer and U.S. Pro Team teammates Chase Josey, Jake Pates and Toby Miller.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll depend on the conditions, but I really want to do it,\u201d Gold said. \u201cI\u2019m still not totally satisfied with the ones I\u2019ve done in contests so far because there\u2019s always this asterisk next to it. In Laax, it wasn\u2019t quite as clean as I wanted. The one at X Games, it wasn\u2019t like a full competition pipe run, more of a style run. The one in Mammoth, I didn\u2019t land the full run. So I really want to put one down in one of my best runs and land a really good one. That would feel really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Steamboat Springs native and Breckenridge resident Taylor Gold, seen here at the Laax Open in January, is hopeful he can land his new double-Michalchuk 1080 trick on the modified superpipe at Copper Mountain Resort at this week’s Dew Tour.Courtesy Laax Open BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 What does it feel like when, after three years of chronic knee […]<\/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-803825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 16:47:22","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\/803825","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=803825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}