State of the Sport: Tricks

I was pretty confident going into the trick. I had done a double 10 and I went super huge and I had tons of time just floating in the air. I got down to the bottom jump and Simon [Dumont] was chilling there, and I asked him, "Do you think I have time for another flip there?" And he was like, "Yeah, I think so, for sure."

On the first one I went off and grabbed mute, but my hand slipped off. The hardest part of it is getting down to the grab, because there's so much force off the takeoff. I washed out on that first one I tried. The second one, I actually did a 16 and went ginormous — landed switch and just blew up. The third one was the one I landed.

Nicholas Schrunk/Red BullBrown, photographed at Alyeska, Alaska.

I think skiers are going to be throwing triples in contests this year for sure. I think at X Games you'll definitely see someone try one. In Big Air, someone's definitely going do it. And even in Slopestyle, I wouldn't doubt it. I know Elias [Ambühl], he can literally spin faster than anyone I know. And I would bet you that he would try one at this X Games Slopestyle.

The process skiers go through to learn new tricks has gotten 10 times safer. There are a lot of different things you can do to train nowadays, like trampolines, foam pits and dry slope, instead of just trying it on snow first.

That's made it kind of dangerous at the same time, because nobody goes through the steps anymore. I'll be up at Windell's and watch kids going into the airbag and trying doubles when they can't do a cork 7. It's a little scary to see that. But then, if they know what they're doing, it just comes so quick.

The key is knowing where you are in the air, and it's the same feeling when you're in the air off a jump as when you're in the air on a trampoline.

I've been to Toronto twice to this place Red Bull has called The Supertramp. It's just like an Olympic trampoline that's made for gymnasts to learn tricks on. It's got a super soft bed and it bounces you really high in the air. It's the only one like it in the world. I guess Team Canada is getting one now.

I think the next thing in tricks is going to be grab variations. It makes the trick 10 times sweeter when you put a different grab in, besides your standard mute grab, or safety or Japan. And the right-side side of things: everyone kind of struggles with that. So I feel like that's definitely the next step, is stepping up the right side game, which happened last year for sure. But it will get even more progressive down the road.

I was just thinking about how judges are going to keep up with the new tricks. And I honestly don't know. I mean, how are they going to judge it when someone does a perfect triple 14 and then someone else does a huge switch double 12 blunt? What's going to score better? If the athletes are confused on what to score higher, the judges are going to have no clue.

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