Stranger Games
Team SJ was in full force on finals day at Phoenix Park
Mountainwatch | Chris Binns
After three Olympic campaigns and after an immense half pipe showdown with a resurgent Shaun White and pint-sized Japanese future star Ayumu Hirano, Scotty “Still Only 23” James can finally call himself an Olympic medallist.
Even with his 2018 PyeongChang campaign ending in a third-place finish there’s no doubt James is the gold standard by which all Aussie winter sports athletes will be judged for years to come. By his own admission “he’s just getting started”.
The fact that this all went down only 700m above sea level, in a ghost town ski resort that gets by largely on artificial snow blown in sub-arctic temperatures made the experience all that much wilder. I flew in on a last-minute whim, on my return home from working on the Volcom Pipe Pro in Hawaii (I’m a surfing journalist by trade). My dates lined up perfectly and without bothering to look at a map I foolishly assumed Seoul would be more-or-less en route … I was way off!
I was also not prepared for the bitter temperatures, which sounds absurd on my behalf, but when you’re told that the snow in Korea is nothing spectacular you automatically assume the cold can’t be that bad. Again, I couldn’t have been more wrong, it was the type of temperature that takes your breath away and has you wiggling your toes in your shoes the second you stop moving around.
17-year-old American superstar Chloe Kim put on a blistering show in the women’s halfpipe
For James, the cold was good. White goes bigger than anyone out of the pipe while James is more technical, so the icier the weather the icier and faster the pipe, and the more amplitude James can add to his string of 1260s. The qualifiers were insane. Somehow a day to warm-up and bank a strong enough score to lock in one of the last spots in the order turned into a gun show of epic proportions under a vivid bluebird sky.
The boys were never going to be short of motivation, but the blistering show that 17-year-old American superstar Chloe Kim put on in winning the women’s halfpipe gold moments earlier wouldn’t have hurt their desire to perform. The fact that her winning run included back-to-back 1080s, a staple of White’s Olympic gold medal run in Italy in 2006, did not go unnoticed either.
The crowd was an interesting mix of hardcore snow types, interested, engaged locals, enthusiastic sports fans, and passionate patriots from all over the snowy world. Kim and White generated the biggest responses by a long, long way, American fans making the trek to Korea in large numbers bolstering the huge support that both already receive in Asia. The fact that Kim is of South Korean heritage and had local family in attendance sees her the darling of these Games, while White has long been an icon in this part of the world as well.
Scotty James in training at the Stomping Grounds is Saas Fee, last November. He has put in the work and his Olympic medal cements his position as one of the world’s best halfpipe riders. Photo: Boen Ferguson
Unlike say, the X-Games, where the crowd is 99% American and fairly knowledgeable, the Olympic crowd is a more even spread of nations, there to enjoy the spectacle as much as anything else. Attendances in Korea have been terrible, only 60% of tickets have been sold meaning you can rock up on the day and pick up seats for less than face value off the scalpers out the front, desperate to recoup their original outlay. “Bloody terrible mate,” moaned a Cockney tout after I asked him how his trip had been, “I’m not even covering the costs of my flights this time around.”
While scalpers will take your cash via any method, inside the venues the Games are Visa only, in an absurd example of corporate sponsorship gone too far. Enter into any of the enormous Olympic gift stores and you understand straight away how important these T-shirt and snow globe-filled cash cows are to an organisation that is losing roughly $10 billion on this event, yet you cannot give them a dollar back if you only have a MasterCard or Amex. The same goes for the ATMs; no Visa, no money. If the Visa situation doesn’t frustrate you, good luck getting around in a country where Google Maps doesn’t work, and the general level of English is a long way from the basics that we lazy Anglophile travellers have come to expect in most corners. But that’s all part of the adventure, right?
The Olympics are awesome, and the Winter Olympics even more so thanks to their massively laidback vibe. The athletes stroll freely around town, and if you post up at a bar for an afternoon you’ll end up chatting to competitors, commentators, managers, you name it. I booked a room online and was shocked to see James and a few others in green and gold wander through the lobby on the morning of the final; turned out I was in the same hotel as the Aussie squad.
Phoenix Park resort has been closed to recreational skiers, spelling bad news for rental outlets and snow retailers
Chatting to a coach at breakfast I opined that seeing crowds react to Shaun White was identical to witnessing Kelly Slater in full cry over the years, and my new friend quickly put a finger to his lips to shut me up, mouthing that Shaun’s mum was sitting at the next table over, and suspecting that I was only getting started on the matter.
Making my way to the mountain on finals day a few things stood out. Throughout town were signs saying “2018 PyeongChang Olympics Kill Us – Ski Shop Association.” These were hung over shuttered storefronts, a direct protest of the fact that from January 21 to March 28 the Phoenix Park resort has been closed to recreational skiers, spelling bad news for rental outlets and snow retailers.
That an entire season has been wiped out for the local community has not been well received.
Even as a spectator it was strange knowing the option to go and cut a few laps of the hill after competition was done for the day wasn’t on the table.
In the breakfast cafes people were pounding serious levels of booze in a beautiful reminder of how much mountain folk love to drink, and how the Olympics is indeed a party. Next to me a middle-aged American couple were spacing their coffees with shots, a Slovakian table was groaning under weight of beers, and outside a pack from Finland blasted Metallica through speakers while slurping soju, everyone’s favourite local blackout-inducer. Good stuff all round.
Onto the final, and as well all know too well White took out gold on the last run of the day. It was awesome that he had to earn it, and it brought out arguably the ride of his life to cap a remarkable comeback from a brutal injury he sustained a few months earlier attempting back-to-back 1440s. He would stick this combination for the first time ever in competition on his medal winning run and immediately put himself alongside Slater in the action sports Greatest of All Time conversation.
Hirano may have felt a little aggrieved but his time will come, as will James’, who one day might wonder the cost of dragging his hand at the end of his second sizzling run. But for now, he is rightfully thrilled to have become our latest Bronzed Aussie, and shown the world what a legitimate heavy hitter he is in the process. Over the past two years James, White and Hirano have evenly split everything from X-Games to World Cups and now the Olympics, and while White is eyeing off skateboarding at the next Summer Games in Tokyo 2020, expect James and Hirano to push each other to remarkable new heights for a long time into the future.
In my own I future I see lots of random winter sports and hearty local dining. The event program is well laid out and the express train system effective, though somewhat sparsely scheduled given how many people are in town for the Games. The Winter Olympics boast everything from the balls-to-the-wall lunacy of the downhill and bobsled to the blood, guts and passion of ice hockey, tradition of cross country and quirkiness of curling. I intend to get right amongst it, and eat my body weight in Kimchi and Korean BBQ along the way.
Good luck to the rest of the Aussies competing in this most quirky of Olympics, and may the rest of us fortunate fans continue to enjoy the show.
