MAHONEboneThis is by far the hardest year to judge far and away. It's said every year, but truly this is next level type of street skiing.
For me it has to go as follows:
1) LJ. the first trick should be a winner in and of itself. Attempting that must have been literal death. Every shot was a banger. Mix in creative features with LJ tech and that's a gold medal video no question
2) Henrik. Henrik was a fantastic combination of smooth and tech, all while going large shot by shot. Maybe only 1, 2 at the max throwaway shots in retrospect but it was next level some of the shots he produced.
3/4) Has to be a toss up between Tom, and Magnus. Magnus flowed and put in a unique style that only a handful of skiers could reproduce, Henrik included. Only thing that limited him was not going as large as Henrik CONSISTENTLY. Tom was going big throughout most of the shots but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe not as crazy tech as Henrik or LJ? If he threw in a couple of harder tricks while hitting those same features he would have taken out Henrik IMO and been competing for 1st.
5) Will is an animal. 30 years old and still charging like this is medal worthy itself. Same with Tom. In comparison, I just thought Will's tech and creativeness weren't as big as Henrik's or certainly LJ's. Magnus was more unique with the style aspect, and recreating the tricks he does is so damn hard, and Tom just went larger with higher risk features. All came down to who was going the biggest this year. I also enjoyed the vibe of Will's video the best.
6) Khai. Insane that I'm ranking Khai here, especially in his field of expertise in skiing. If Khai took more of the Cam Riley / Clayton Vila approach and put in more shots like his enders while going even more tech he would have placed for sure.
I can't fathom how the judges put medals on these this year. Must have been the hardest thing to judge all year. Props to everyone for putting out unreal segments.
After sleeping on it and watching again, I rearrange my positions and stand by these as my own personal final.
1) LJ
2) Henrik
3) Tom
4) Khai
5) Magnus
6) Will
For all the avid park rats out there, imagine trying to hit that first feature Khai built. Landing in the right sport on the first transfer with a decent 8 foot drop while carrying enough speed to get onto the second rail, the blind 4 off charging as hard as he did on the waterfall rail, going big on those drops. The rail garden shot is a lot trickier than people may realize at first. Hop the gap between the rails into backslide the second rail? Super hard. @ 1:03, going all the way to the end of the wallride without over shooting to a nasty fall? Khai deserves to be up higher for sure.
While watching these edits try to think to yourself 1) If I myself were trying to hit these same features, how successful would I be at it / how difficult is the trick with the feature, and 2) Given the time and skier, how replicated can the tricks you're doing be? With Magnus, although it would take a minute to master the stuff he does, I feel like a lot of these guys can replicate it to a degree. Not saying Magnus is weaker than any of the comp, he had some of the nastiest tricks in the whole comp. That nollie onto the rail, Peanut Butter 4? (Am I saying that right?) / Nollie 4 into the down-flat and the guard post hit onto the rail are all nasty, nasty tricks, just feel like he wasn't sending it as big as the other boys consistently. The switch nosepress off the roof was nuts, the handplant 180 was crazy, just not the right combo of amplitude to tech. If he does those same tricks with more risk next year, he's a medal contender no doubt.
Just my 2-cents. On a side note, Line crushing the street game with LJ, Tom, Khai, and Will all representing.
*also, I mis-stated in my first post that each year these are harder and harder to judge, while this only being the second year of X-Real Ski. Thought there was a Real Ski in 2015 but that was the last year of Real Backcountry.
