USASA 2008 Nationals

I have not had time to post any updates on the USASA 2008 Nationals. My Dad has been posting some updates on his site. You can see them at http://www.xtremethrill.com.

I Had a Great Summer

I have not done a good job on blogging over the summer. I have been very busy with summer camps and baseball. For baseball I played in 2 tournaments.

I went to Windells snowboard camp in July in Oregon with my dad. We had a great time. It was very cool to be snowboarding in the middle of the summer. I was able to practice my rails and jumps so I can be ready to start up this season and make it to the Nationals again. Being third in last years nationals was a lot of fun. I want to be first this year.

A video of me sliding a box rail at Windells.


Here are some more clips of me snowboarding last season.


I took some wakeboarding lessons during the summer. I am now able to do a wake to wake jump and air 360. I tried doing a back flip but did not make it. I am able to do the back flip on the trampoline but need to work on it in the water. It was a lot of fun wakeboarding this summer.

This is a video of me wakeboarding at the beginning of the summer.

Wakeboarding

Last week I went wakeboarding for my first time. It was very cool. My dad took some video of me on my first time and made a small movie. Hope you like it.

Article in Community Paper

This is cool. I was interviewed a few weeks back by the community paper. They wanted to know how I did at the Nationals in Tahoe and publish an article on it. I got the paper last week and it looked great. Here is the link to the online version.

http://www.candgnews.com/Homepage-Articles/2007/5-02-07/OS-KID.asp

Overall Ranking at Nationals - This rocks

Last night the Nationals people posted the overall rankings. My ranking based on all 5 events I competed in is third. This means that of all the competitors who completed all 5 events I am third best in the country. I thought this was so cool. Many of my friends here have been congratulating me all last night and today.

Giant Slalom Day

Today I competed in Giant Slalom. This is like Slalom but the gates are farther apart and you can get going much faster. The scoring is like Slalom where they add your times from the two run you get. On my first run I fell so I got just over 50 seconds. On my second run I did not fall and shaved off 7 seconds for a time of just over 43 seconds. So my dad thinks that I am in six place. We will find out later tonight what the official results are.

After Giant Slalom we went up to the top of the mountain. The highest point is around 9000 feet above sea level. We then came down some very long runs going through trees. It was a lot of fun going in and out of trees in the snow. The runs were very fast.

I had a great time this week. It was a lot of work and I am so tired now. Tomorrow I am leaving to go home and I am looking forward to playing with my friends. I will miss the waffles because the whole thing is made of sugary goodness.

Slalom Day

Today I competed in the slalom event. This is when you go down the hill really fast and zig zag between lots of gates. You get two runs and they add your time to see what your score is. On my second run I slipped and had to get back up fast and make sure I did not miss the gate. I still had a good score. I think I came in 8th for Slalom. They have not posted the final results yet.

After the competition I went to hang out with another snowboarder I know. His name is Darren but everyone calls him Big D. We kept riding the terrain parks having lots of fun. I did a nose grab off a jump and also worked on my 270 onto the box rail.


We did not take any photos today.

Attack of the Two Headed Mutants

Yesterday was day 3 of the Nationals competition. I competed in the halfpipe event. The competition was a lot of fun. It was very warm out so the pipe was soft. My first run went well. I did straight airs, an indy, and aliupe. In my second run I did straight airs, an indy, a 360, frontside aliupe and backside aliupe. I came in 8th for my age class. The kid that won was awesome. The only thing I did not like about doing the pipe is that we had to walk up to the top of the pipe to do our next run. I was so tired from doing this.

Yesterday I went to the snowskate park and got these cool two headed mutant freaks from the Nike tent. I took one of them to diner in Kings Beach near Lake Tahoe and took some pictures of him coming out of the lake.

At night I watched a rail jam. A lot of kids were showing off some very cool tricks on rails. I tried to get a spot to register but did not win one of the lottery spots. The kids were doing front flips off some of the rails. It was so cool.

I had a great day 3 and am looking forward to the other days.

Updated My Day 2 Picture Album

My dad added the pictures of me getting my Silver medal for Boardercross on day 2 of the Nationals.

Boardercross and Snowskating

Today I did the boardercross event. This is when you race people down a course around corners and over jumps. You need to make sure you go around the gates. We started off by inspecting the course and then did a medium speed run to practice. After we did that we did time trials to determine who races who and find out the order of who picks which starting gate first.

I thought I was not going to win but I came in second place for the overall event in my age category. So I got a silver medal and some cool prizes. Now I am ranked as the second best boardercross in the US for my age category. I think this is so cool. My mom and dad were so proud of me.

My dad also competed today but he did the halfpipe competition. He said he did very well for an old guy.

After I competed I went to the Nike tent and tried out snowskating. They gave me a snowskate for free. It looks like a skateboard deck but you ride it on the snow. This was very fun.