National Champion Matt Cook! I cannot beleeeeed dat action! Nationals: Day 1

With 18 of us crammed in one room and after a long night of partying, someone woke up at 5:30 am and started cooking. Despite being absolutely exhausted from traveling the whole day before and socializing that night, we actually ended up getting to the chairlift 25 minutes before it opened. Today was the halfpipe competition and we started hiking it early to get our runs dialed.

Packing up the Soccer Van at the little Maine Airport

Caleb wearing Melissa's pink snuggie in the airport

Sunday River, Maine

The pipe was a little sketchy, but it didn’t prevent Matt from qualifying first for the finals. With a very unique format for qualifying, Caleb missed qualifying by one spot and me by three. We were both really bummed because the finals were to be held later that night under the lights with a live feed on the internet.

Matt's wrecking ground

After coming back to the condo and taking a quick hot tub and sauna sesh, it was time to get Matt back to the Pipe to practice for the night’s competition. Upon arriving we all got really excited because the pipe was lit up by huge lights, and they had camera crews filming and interviewing the riders as they finished their runs.

The halfpipe at night

The format was the best score of two runs with 6 competitors in the Ski Pipe Division. Because Matt qualified first, he was the first person to drop. On his first hit, the entire audience went nuts as he easily did a flare that was 12 feet above the pipe wall. His run was going great until his second to last hit when he decked on a massive cork 9.

Waiting for Matt's run!

Sitting in last place with only one run left, the pressure was really on. When I talked to Matt though, he was really confident that he could land his run. With all of us at the top of the pipe we gave Matt a quick pep talk and fired him up. It was quite the scene because it was opening ceremonies for Nationals, so every competitor was in attendance and on top of that, of the 6 competitors in the finals, 5 of them were from CU Boulder. Riding solo, he took his run and absolutely blew the competition away with amplitude and technicality. His second hit was so massive that it scared everyone in the crowd, as it was impossible to see if he was going to come down correctly on the transition. Cork 9, stomped, flare, stomped, and it was easy to know that he had just won. Yes, you heard correctly, Matt Cook is National Champion in Halfpipe! What a great start to Nationals with Matt standing on top of the podium representing USC. Who knew, that SoCal could rip!?

National Champion Baller!

Stay tuned,

Christopher Farro