The last week proved to be an all out cage match for Simon Dumont at Winter X 12. Thousands of action sports fanatics swarmed on Aspen and found their seats for skiing’s most anticipated heavy weight bout. The Media appearances that have come to be expected of Simon were a grueling addition to an already stressful event. In the first showdown of the week Simon was scored second in another epic battle with Tanner Hall and the crowd was not happy about it. Simon felt like both Tanner and himself deserved their applause for making it through all 3 rounds of the battle on their feet and was pretty disappointed the crowd hadn’t seen the grace it had taken to overcome his power.
A lost match never stops Simon and his focus was immediately to the Big Air event. The new format proved it could be anybody’s night and in a head to head format Simon’s misty 1080 didn’t win over the deciding judge Josh Lubek’s fondness for the marsupial flip in round one.
The next event was King of the Quarter held on a massive quarter pipe erected on Aspen Mountain. The first hit of practice Simon came in determined and ended up 30 feet up, 7 feet in and slammed into the pads on the deck. He stood up and replied to concerned onlookers that it was a bit under vert and he was going to have to pop. Simon dialed in the pop on his next hit bringing a massive 30ft air cleanly to his feet. Over the course of the night Simon found he had maxed out his height potential on the quarter pipe at 30ft. This observation did not stop him from continually maxing out the potential of the pipe all night long. He kept coming up to me and asking, “was that bigger?” I would look to Douglas and await his reply from the height meter “30ft” over and over again.
The final hit of the night for Simon was as massive as the rest but unfortunately he caught his wing on the deck and consequently flipped to the bottom and slammed the exact same shoulder. Bummer. Although Simon did miss the slopestyle as a result it is a pleasure to report that the fall barely slowed him. He appeared on Sports Center as a host the next night and hopped a plane to NYC Monday morning for an appearance on MTV’s TRL. Simon is already back to 90% and will be making his way to the coming Ski Tour stop in Squaw Valley.
Simons appearance on TRL will air at 3:30pm ET Thursday January 31st on MTV. Watch out for an insider’s view of Simons X-games week coming to www.empireattire.com and www.simon-dumont.com in the next few days. Also be sure and check out the new products from EMPIRE’S collaborations with Akomplice and Bob Knits that will be hitting the EMPIRE site this week.
Posted: January 31st, 2008 under Events.
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