INTVW: Alex Schlopy hopes to repeat X Games Gold in Skiing Big Air
We caught up with Monster Energy's Alex Schlopy on his way to X Games for a quick Q&A before things get too crazy out there. Alex won Ski big air last winter and is a two-time Olympian & three time World Cup downhill winner.
Congratulations on your gold in last years “Big Air.”
Thank you
So this is going to be your 2nd X-games?
Yes it will be number 2 in Aspen.
Which events will you be competing in?
Ill be doing ‘ski slope style’ and ‘ski big air.’
Are you excited?
Oh yea beyond excited.
So physically and mentally how have you prepared for this X-games?
Just been training and the center of excellence, which is the US of A building in park city for the past couple months just trying to work on the trampolines and doing some new tricks.
Oh nice, so what is the process of developing a new trick? What goes into that?
What I try and do is break it down with lets say a bigger trick, like a double cork 1260 for instance, you’d think about a cork 7 then a cork 5 and then combine the two tricks together.
Sounds like a good little formula you have.
Yeah so basically for bigger tricks try to break it down into or maybe 3 smaller tricks just to build up on each part of the trick before you through the whole thing into one.
Sounds more complicated then I can imagine
Well with practice makes perfect
So what will you be looking forward to most this competition?
I’m just really excited this year something about it is just making me uh, I just want to get out and start skiing right now pretty much. I’m just looking forward to everything. I think the level of skiing and competing overall is going to be a lot higher then it’s ever been before. So it’s going to be fun to see what happens just go out there and do my best and try some new stuff hopefully.
What’s more important while you’re in the air, distance or style?
Id say you need to have a mixture of everything, last year in big air I tried my best to try and go bigger then some of the other competitors and I think that worked out. Buts there’s definitely a few things I could have fixed for sure last year; like with that extra amplitude I kind of had opened with some of my tricks so they weren’t as clean as they could have been. So I’ve been working out that a lot so hopefully this year I can try some new stuff too, so it will be interesting.
So I see a lot of young athletes look up to you, what advice would you give to them?
I’d say just have fun with it, a lot of people I notice kind of get, I don’t know, they sometimes seem like its not fun. When I feel like I’m not having fun ill just go and ski and few laps for myself, and it starts to become fun again, so id say fun is the best piece of advice. Also don’t give up and always think about the positive side of things because theirs always a positive side, as hard as it is to find sometimes.
Nice I love that. So how long have you been with Monster and Oakley as your sponsors?
Last year was my first year with monster and Oakley and it was pretty much the best year I’ve ever had.
Yea I bet you were stoked on that.
Yea really stoked it was cool to have that kind of support and it just made me want to ski that much harder and show them that I want to do well and represent their companies.
Yea a lot of people support and believe in you, and after watching highlights of last years X-games I can see why.
Haha thank you
So tell me a little about the X-games community, it seems really competitive but also seems like you guys seem to come together anytime someone is able to push the limits in the sports.
Yea when you’re up in the gate it’s a little more heated, then when you’re in the actual lounge because everyone wants to do the best they can. But either way were still all friends and were still just basically feeding off of each other and I think that’s why sometimes it gets pushed so far and people win so many things because you watch your friend go do something crazy and your like wow I wonder if I could do this, this other trick that would be crazy and its kind of a cool feeling that’s going on between all of us.
So what will you be doing before/after/in between your events, anything special?
I’m going to focus a lot on some types of visualization training, just because I figured that’s the best way to train for me along with actually physically training. So when I’m not able to on the course I’ll be thinking about what I want to do and basically just try and keep it all in my head while I’m not actually able to physically train the course.
Well I am sure you are going to do amazing.
Thank you, I am going to do my best.
