Quote:
Originally Posted by Roughneck
Freestyle Skiing (7): Men's moguls favorites (whether Bilodeau or Kingsbury), women's moguls contenders (should be at least two Dufour-Lapointe's on the podium and Justine has stolen a couple from Kearney recently), men and women's halfpipe contenders, women's slopestyle favorites, women's ski cross favorites, men's ski cross contenders
|
Make that 8 - ABM is a legitimate contender for a medal in ski slopestyle. He's the only guy we're sending but he also might be the most likely guy to prevent an American podium sweep. Nick Goepper is the easy favourite but as to who the runner up is, opinion is somewhat split between ABM and Bobby Brown. The course will play into it. I actually think he has a better shot than anyone on our pipe team - Justin Dorey has a legitimate shot at gold, but hasn't been consistent in a while putting a run down. So it's sort of a "might finish first or tenth" situation there.
Not re: Canada, incidentally, but one of the bigger controversies the past couple of days for skiing has been the USA's decision to leave Tom Wallisch off of their Men's slopestyle team. The guy is basically the face of slopestyle skiing, and arguably the single best park skier on the planet. However, he didn't have the results some of the other guys did in competitions this season, leading to some speculation he might be nursing an injury (which would explain the selection). That said, USA has for the past two years or so basically used Wallisch as the face of their freestyle team, with numerous profiles and interviews, not to mention being the guy to unveil their olympic uniform.
A lot of people are pretty baffled and upset about this; it's sort of like if Toews slumped to start the NHL season and Canada left him off the hockey squad.