2010 Nationals Day 1

SCOTTY J

MAKAYLA



KYLE

Day one of The 2010 USASA Nationals is in the books, and is worth reading about! As always there were highs and lows, the lows today being Randall, Chris Tierney and Phoebe not quite able to land their runs. The bummer is that they all had podium worthy runs. There is no blame to spread though, and they went down attempting amazing runs.
Now to the highlights of the day. I started out with the Jr and Youth Men in HP and today I had the pleasure of working with Josh Cohen and Kyle Dorfman, two riders who I have not had enough time with. Kyle blew me away with his style and, much like Randall Stacy, his approach to HP is unique and refreshing. Just look at the photo of his ultra tweaked first air!
Josh Cohen was all business today. I could see this coming yesterday when he expressed his concern that his board be tuned for high performance. Scotty J and I made sure this was the case and sent 5 lightning fast boards to the hill today. Tuning continued on the hill as you can see from the Scotty J action photo.
So, we did our part, and the rest was up to Josh. The kid's first run started with a monster fs air, followed by a front 540, front 3 and cab 3. We were proud of him, but his mind was on run 2 and how he could step it up. The call was adding a difficult frontside 720 to the run, and that is just what Josh did (in addition to making the rest of the run bigger and cleaner). Great working with you Josh, way to step it up!
Mike Perle was also all biz, but that is old news to me now. His backside 900 is so nasty, quite a crowd/judge pleaser. Mike also stepped up run two, adding a 720, much like Josh. His run paid off and put him on the podium in the 2 spot. Great Job Mike!
Another 2nd place podium went to Maverick Shaw, who had a great day at Slalom with Scotty J. A Shaw on the podium, what's new? We still love it and look forward to many more Shaw podium appearances. Get better quick Serena!

As proud as I was of Mike for landing on the podium, there was something else that got me just as stoked. That was the RETURN OF MAKAYLA TIERNEY!!!!!! I ripped over to women's slope after pipe just in time to see Mak's second practice run. Keep in mind that 5 months ago I was with Mak when she traumatically broke her leg in Austria. I have been thinking about and hoping for her safe comeback ever since, and today was the day I had hoped for. The girl attacked 40-50ft kickers with confidence and style (a Tierney trait). As I sat in pleasured awe on the side of the course to watch run 2 I was mortified to see her overshoot jump one by about 25 feet, flying over 50ft and dropping about 50ft to her back in the flats. She went so big I could feel my heart sink while she was in the air. I was the first to the scene where she lay motionless. It was a sickening sense of deja-vu and I couldn't believe she was broke again. Amazingly, she wasn't at all broken and after gaining her senses and testing some movement she informed me she wanted to finish her run. "Heck No" I said, to which she replied, "Can I at least finish the rail section?"
Sorry I didn't let you do so Mak, but after that scare it just wasn't worth it. I could not be any more impressed with this girl and I am so, so, so glad you are OK!