After months of hospitalization and rehabilitation, Kevin Pearce, Olympic snowboarding hopeful who was critically injured during a December halfpipe accident in a Park City, Utah, has finally returned home to his family in Norwich, VT.
“‘There is little use thinking about the past, what could have been, or what may be in the future,’ Simon Pearce, his father, said. ‘He has stayed focused on the present moment. And it feels like it is working.’”
Rob Walker of The New York Times digs into the marketing and fashion decisions around Burton’s U.S. Olympic snowboarding team pants… because someone has to help rearrange our Monday morning brain cells.
“Admittedly not even the hippest European head of state or out-of-the-box executive would be likely to wear jeans with the baggy and torn look sported by Shaun White and his teammates in Vancouver. But that look is still merely a variation on an established fashion pattern. The snowboarders didn’t interrupt a staid space with spectacular style (like a zoot suit in early 1940s Los Angeles); they attended a spectacle in familiar leisure wear.”
Swiss environmentalists are worried that helicopter noise, “unjustified” fuel consumption, and landing sites in protected areas are just some of the problems associated with 15,000 heliskiing flights into the Alps each year.
“Switzerland’s Lauterbrunnen valley is one of the busiest regions for helicopter traffic. And, on a sunny spring morning, more than 60 skiers are already lined up, waiting for their flights to the glaciers,” reports Imogen Foulkes of the BBC News.
As the nation’s top halfpipe snowboarders were greeted by President Obama at the White House last Wednesday to celebrate America’s recent success at the Vancouver Olympics, Christina Crapanzano of Time wonders about the “extreme risks” being pursued on-mountain, the eroding “esprit de corps,” and the “seemingly endless dollars being spent.”
“The pace of change quickened last year when leading halfpipe snowboarders, with the assistance of corporate sponsors, sought new equipment to break performance barriers and set a new bar in the sport.”
Cirque Belgique: Belgian Snow, Skate, Surf Extravaganza. O’Neill team riders Delphine and Mathias Vanoverbeke, Axel Vermeulen, Keith Marcantuoni, and Pascal Van Der Mast surf Puerto Viejo, Peru, From Romania With Love freestyle snowboard documentary teaser, Luxemburg skatetrip, and Dopamine II surf footage.
Day in the life: Swiss snowboarder and Burton team rider Nico Müller, known for a decade’s worth of smooth riding style, spends the day riding halfpipes and the varied terrain of Laax, Switzerland’s leading freestyle winter resort.
