Salomon Jib Academy Finals Day 3

Words: Jeff Schmuck
Photos: Jeff Schmuck & Nick Papailiou

Following back-to-back days of bluebird skies and warm temperatures, things took a turn for the worse today at Salomon Jib Academy Finals in Mammoth with high winds and murky skies.

The less than stellar weather forced the postponement of today's originally planned private photo shoot on a custom built jump until tomorrow, and created a somewhat lazy atmosphere amongst the Jib Academy Finalists and Salomon team as some opted to head back to their rooms early to rest up and/or begin celebrating Cinqo De Mayo.

Paul Bergeron

Oystein Braten

Ian Punnett

As a result, there's not much ski porn to show you from today (although Nick Martini did pile a bundle of kids into the Salomon truck and drove them deep into the woods to hit a tree jib), so we figured we'd take advantage of the down day and introduce you to the 11 Salomon Jib Academy Finalists in attendance here in Mammoth along with a fun fact about each of them...

Oystein Braten - "I'm a Norwegian folk dancer."

Garett Northey - "I wore a baseball helmet for two years when I was 8 because I thought it was cool."

Matt Wilcox - "I joined a street gang called SCDB at the age of 14."

Cesar Fabre - "When I was little I ran through what I thought was an open door but there was a sliding glass door there and I got a major concussion."

KC Brousseau - "I was riding my bike when I was 11 and tried to impress a girls track and field team by hitting a jump and crashed onto my handlebars and cut my dick open."

Ian Punnett - "I was on an eighth grade camping trip and made the mistake of falling asleep first...and I got tea bagged."

Alex Beaulieu-Marchand - "When I was 9 I was playing baseball and was a back catcher and a guy bashed my teeth out with his bat, so that's why my teeth are crooked."

Trey Fornelius - "Two years ago me and my brother got stranded in a bowl on Mount Hood because we didn't realize the lifts had stopped running and we had to spend a couple of hours hiking out."

Alessandro Jossen - "People think I look like Tom Wallisch."

Axel Ostlund - "When I was 5 or 6 years old I was sleepwalking and went downstairs to the kitchen and started peeing in the freezer."

Oscar Wester - "My brother (Jacob Wester) used to coach me at trampolining and he wanted me to try a double backflip but I was scared and started crying...and he just laughed at me."

Be sure to check out tonight's live video chat here with some of the finalists shown above beginning at 8pm PST/11pm EST, and stay tuned for more from Mammoth, including coverage on tomorrow's private shoot and the highly anticipated awards ceremony where the 2010 Salomon Jib Academy Champion will be crowned on the final day of Jib Academy Finals.