Joe Parsons exhibits the style that brought him gold.
For hardcore followers of freestyle snowmobiling, Joe Parsons' victory tonight in Speed & Style represented a victory for the sport itself.
Parsons, the sport's emerging golden boy, who turned 21 yesterday, knocked off defending champ Levi LaVallee in the head-to-head final with a bold run that included two flip variations under pressure: superflip and a no hander. A collection of Alaskan devotees gathered at ringside, including the Turnagain Hardcore crew of Jimmy Blaze, Dane Ferguson and the brothers Landry. They roared their approval when the scoring calculated Parsons scoring higher in style while LaVallee won the speed portion. Overall points swung the gold Parsons' way.
Not to say LaVallee isn't well liked or respected. But Parsons epitomizes a new school of freestyle a world apart from racing and its unofficial coming out party was tonight. "Parsons killed it, just killed it," said Sebastian Landry. "We're seeing the future right now."
Parsons himself had to agree. "It's definitely a victory for freestyle," he said. "I'm proud to be part of it."
Joshua Duplechian
Parsons has officially arrived.
And it would seem this is just the beginning of things to come for Parsons. He has two more events to go: Next Trick on Friday and Freestyle on Sunday. "It's not the end of anything," he said. "But Freestyle, to me, is the most important. I definitely want to do well there because that's what me and Friz [Heath Frisby] and everybody else who takes this seriously have trained for all year. It's that Freestyle gold."
Cory Davis took the Speed & Style bronze with a win over Frisby in the final. Frisby, for his part, nearly wrecked himself and did total his sled in his semifinal loss to LaVallee when he couldn't find his footing on the landing of an Indian air superflip on the first hit of the style section. He slammed his head into his bars but regained the handle in time to rally the next combo ramp. Such bravado also earned kudos from the Turnagain Hardcore contingent.
That left Frisby without his top sled against Davis, in the bronze match up. So Davis took advantage. "Never thought I'd be so happy with third place," Davis said later. Frisby wasn't fazed though. "You know why I'm here and what I train for to win freestyle," said Frisby.
Similarly, LaVallee, the only rider slated to compete in all four sled-events, said he's too busy to dwell on defeat or victory for that matter.
"I knew Joe was going to be fast; he's an old SnoCross racer," LaVallee said. "And I'm disappointed that I made a couple bobbles out there. But Joe rode his butt off and hats off to him for sure."
And with as much stuff as I've got going on this week," LaVallee continued, "a silver medal's pretty dang sweet. I don't even have time to really think about it anymore. I've got SnoCross qualifying and then Next Trick tomorrow, so I can only look forward."
Indeed. For slednecks, these games are only beginning.
Joshua Duplechian
Levi LaVallee had the speed all night but he couldn't top Parsons' style.
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Tim Mutrie
As a retired ski patroller and Aspen Times staffer, Tim Mutrie has been deciphering two-stroke transmissions since '07. He also covers big mountain skiing in the ESPN Freeskiing Blog.
