Uh, no, not that hot dog. Here, we’re considering the other Great American HotDog, known on the slopes as the aerial skier. These are the brave, friendly guys and gals who flip, twist, spin and somersault themselves backward into the sky and somehow land on a horrifyingly steep precipice without rearranging their rib cages or breaking their faces. Next week, for the first time in Olympic history, an official will drape medals around these red-hots, putting the sports establishment’s imprimatur on an event that was once the exclusive province of renegades. it is, to make the point, as though clean-shaven, flatgutted, spandex-wearing Hells Angels had signed up for the Tour de France. “This is a huge breakthrough our sport,” says Trace Worthington, the “adventure junkie” who is also the leading U.S. air skier. “When we get our air time, we’ll be the most exciting event in the Olympics. The sport will speak for itself.”
And it will speak English. Of all the Winter events, this is the one that was born in the U.S.A. The sport traces its roots to Woodstock, Vt., circa 1910, when a couple of loony thrill-seekers somersaulted off a snow-covered ramp at the Woodstock Country Club. But it wasn’t until the 1960s when ski devils, with more courage than they knew what to do with, turned the Colorado Rockies into a place of reckless, restless, midair ski walking.
Hot-dogging helped change the face of the ski industry, a previously ultraconservative enterprise. “It was like artists and writers and actors had suddenly joined the board of directors at the bank,” says Jeff Chumas, a former aerialist who is now freestyle program director for the U.S. Ski Association. “Nobody could understand why skiers would get tired of chasing around gates and want to jump off cliffs.”
As a boy, Worthington, now the best all-round freestyle skier on and especially off the earth, took up aerials because he found football “not individual enough” and the alpine disciplines of downhill, slalom, etc., “monotonous.” A 24-year-old self-marketing whiz who has won the overall freestyle World Cup two years running, Worthington is the favorite to become aerials’ first Olympic champion. “It’s amazing . . . to consider the aftermath,” says Trace the Ace. “The potential endorsements and sponsors and exposure. You’re this guy who’s won the gold and you’re suddenly famous.”
Worthington isn’t guaranteed to be the guy. For one thing, he’s returning from a nasty leg injury. For another, he faces formidable opposition from Kris (Fuzz) Feddersen, the 30-year-old veteran of the U.S. team who catches the “biggest air” on the ski tour; Canada’s Philippe LaRoche, Lloyd Langlois and Nicolas Fontaine of the “Quebec Air Force” (who currently rank 1, 2 and 3 in World Cup points), and Russia’s Sergei (Big Hands) Shupletsov, said to have learned his acrobatics in the Moscow Circus. The women’s favorite is Lina Tcherjazova of Uzbekistan. She and the other former Soviets got a jump on this sport after they were invited a few years back to an exchange program in Lake Placid. Today Leapin’ Lina is the toast of Tashkent.
MTV, where are you? The thrills, the spills, a never-ending catalog of current pop tunes blaring in the background (from Madonna to Nirvana), the whooping energy of the masses lining the short hills and confined jump areas: all these ingredients combine to make aerials the closest thing in winter sport to a rock concert. “Put your bands together for Trace the Ace,” the PA guy screams over the heavy-metal noise as Worthington swoops through the air. “Did he NAIL that landing or WHAAAAAT?” The sport is terrific in its wow-ability, eminently watchable, a dream TV spectacle and, as Worthington says, “hardly results-oriented. I told the people at CBS: If I do my thing and win, great. But get aerials on and keep showing them. Forget the sob-story features. Forget the Zamboni machine at hockey. Show aerials! Nobody cares who wins. They just want to see us fly!”
Flying is how they score points. The judges give 20 percent of the score on how well the skier flies off the ramp, 50 percent on the midair acrobatics – generally tucked and spinning somersaults similar to diving – and 30 percent on the landing.
Aerials as a legitimate sport has evolved backward, beginning on a professional level and working diligently until finally being recognized with Olympic-medal status. The problem was always the danger. With few rules and regulations, little training and sparse equipment specifications, aerial jumpers kept wiping out. As they say, “eating their liver.” Turning up paralyzed. And filing lawsuits against the locales where the accidents happened. The straw that broke the sport’s back – literally, in the case of the victim – was aerialist Dirk Douglas’s crippling crash in a professional event at Stratton Mountain, Vt., in 1977.
Soon, insurance underwriters pulled their coverage of inverted aerials (backward somersaults). As recently as 1983, four aerialists, Fuzz Feddersen among them, lost their competitor’s licenses after jumping at a World Cup in Angel Fire, N.M. “A dark hole,” Feddersen describes the time.
But then freestylers cleaned up their act, tightening rules, adopting safety standards, establishing a World Cup circuit. State-of-the-art training centers were built first at Lake Placid, then at Park City, Utah – where competitors practice in the summers racing down plastic runs and catapulting into water. Tenacious lobbying of the International Ski Federation and then the International Olympic Committee finally reversed traditional opinions. Two years ago in Albertville, freestyle moguls became a medal sport. Next to aerials, moguls are mild, more odd-looking than dangerous. In that event, skiers take a run down a very bumpy slope, leaping in air and extending their limbs, all the while racing a clock and keeping to a straight line. Donna Weinbrecht, of New Jersey, won the first moguls gold medal.
The American aptitude for high-style skiing has been obvious. Even without counting Weinbrecht’s Olympic triumph, since the freestyle World Cup circuit began in 1979, U.S. men have won eight season event titles, U.S. women, 21. In this same period U.S. alpine racers of both sexes have totaled only six titles. Why such disparity? “It’s a touchy subject,” says Worthington. “Are they [our alpiners] too spoiled? Do they burn out? I think the most talented athletes in skiing are freestylers!” Whoa . . . His coach, Chris (The Hatchet) Haslock, is more diplomatic. “It’s desire,” he says. “We’re hungrier.”
Ironically, it was Haslock’s own near successful attempt to break himself into several pieces when he was a competitor that almost cost aerials its place in the Olympics. The goateed, earringed Haslock began as an aerialist because “I was intimidated catching air.” (That means he was afraid of jumping off his roof.) As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, at the Calgary Olympics, he accomplished close to what the skiers call “a yard sale” – hats, goggles, body parts scattered all over the hill. Even with the enthusiastic crowds and the home-country air force cavorting through the heavens, the prevailing video byte was of Haslock’s whiplashing head slam in a practice jump.
But aerials – despite new rules requiring helmets in ‘89 and new judging criteria rewarding clean execution – wound up getting hatcheted. Haslock’s brutal crash revived the image of aerials as an irresponsible Indy ride in the sky appealing to ghoulish ambulance-chasers and undeserving of a full-medal position in the French Savoie in ‘92. Finally, the IOC relented, adding the aerials for Lillehammer. After all, danger is no stranger to Olympic skiing. The downhill is an accident looking for a scene; the ski jump a flight of dangerous fancy – as the unfortunate Norwegian who was scheduled to jump while carrying the Torch in the opening ceremonies proved last week when he crashed and burned.
“OK, up there in competition I’m a monster,” Worthington consents, finally. “I do want the rush, the thrill, the big air. I am a wild dude. I do feel close to death. It’s a danger thing. I’ve always wanted the edge. But down off the skis, I’m telling you, I’m just another businessman. I’m a regular guy like anybody else. I mean, I own a real house!”
Trace the Ace just wants to avoid the yard sale.
DIAGRAM: Don’t try this at home, kids
The aerial skier must have the flexibility of a gymnast, the muscles of a diver and the nerves of a fighter pilot. But falls aren’t cushioned by mats or water – and parachutes are never used.
Skiers start at 418 meters (1,371 feet) above sea level, barrel down a 65m (213 ft) hill – pitched at a 25 degree angle – hit a ramp, somersault backwards and land on a steep, 37 degree, 37 m (121 ft) incline, 50m (163 ft) below the starting gate.
