The Moore brothers show off their mettle at the Winter X Games Aspen 2012 Snowmobile Freestyle Final
It is not rare to see siblings fighting to get hold of the same thing. However, finding two brothers competing for top honours during the Snowmobile Freestyle contest at Winter X Games Aspen 2012 on Thursday, January 26, in Aspen, Colorado, was indeed an uncommon sight to behold.
Hailing from Texas, Colten and Caleb Moore were present in Aspen on Thursday with their sight set on one thing and one thing only: Winter X gold. They did not seem concerned with the fact that one of them may, at some point, deprive the other of success. Putting their sentiments aside, the Moore brothers entered a field of talented snowmobile riders from around the world to battle it out for the highest spot on the podium.
America’s Levi LaVallee and Sweden’s Daniel Bodin, defending Winter X Games Snowmobile Freestyle gold medallist, were missing from the contest line-up on Thursday. LaVallee was forced to sit on the sidelines during the competition for the second year in a row after suffering a tibia fracture during a training session just two weeks after landing a record long-distance jump at Red Bull: “New Year. No Limits.” Bodin, on the other hand, was unable to compete at the latest edition of Winter X Games due to a fractured vertebra, suffered early this month.
With the likes of LaVallee and Bodin missing from the field, the window of opportunity turned out to be wide open for other riders to claim top honours.
During the elimination round, Colten, Caleb, Joe Parsons and Heath Frisby won their respective heats to advance through into the four-man final. Colten, who had already earned a pretty solid score off his first run, attempted a double grab in mid-air but let go of the vehicle to come down crashing. The fall looked nasty, making his appearance in the final doubtful.
However, Colten surprised everyone in attendance at Buttermilk by competing in the finals, showing no signs of jitters or whatsoever. It seemed that his experience of riding quad had taught him the art to avoid injury during a crash.
During the final, the 22-year-old Texan landed a decent first run, but stole the show with his second run. The run featured a cordova back-flip and a super-flip Indian air, sending the crowd in frenzy. The judges deemed his second run as the most impressive performance of the final and awarded him a decisive score of 93.66, thus taking home the coveted Winter X Gold.
Success never comes easy and Colten was well aware of this fact of life. Talking to a reporter after the final of Snowmobile Freestyle, the Krum-native revealed that he had indeed put in an immense effort to perform well during the Winter X Games Aspen 2012.
“I knew I had to come bring everything I have, plus some,” Colten said. “For a few months I've been training as hard as I could, and I knew I had to come out here and stomp the best run of my life, and that's just what I did. I've never rode so good in my life. I'm so pumped right now I can't even breathe.”
It had taken Colten three appearances in the Winter X Games to climb to the top of the podium, finishing in eight and fifth place during the previous two editions of the event respectively.
The 24-year-old Parsons scored a 90.66 off his first run to secure runner-up place and thus take home the silver, while Caleb joined his brother on the podium after finishing in third place with an 87.00-point first run.
Caleb took third place in the final after scoring an 87.00 off his first run. The 24-year-old Texan proved that he was not just an athlete with the beginner’s luck on his side, but was in fact a serious threat. An ATP Freestyler for nearly a decade now, Caleb did exceptionally well to making use of his experience of riding a quad to become adept at riding a snowmobile.
If anyone was under the impression that he or his brother had a lot to learn about the sport considering the number of years they had spent in a completely different sport, the Moore brothers proved them wrong and took just three years to earn a podium finish.
“It's been a quick road in the snowmobile world, but a lot of people don't know we've been on quads for about 10 years now," said one of the Moore brothers. “It gave us a lot of background and made it to where we could hop on a sled and do the same stuff.”
While Colten, Parsons and Celeb took the medals in Snowmobile Freestyle this year, one cannot help but wonder if the presence of LaVallee and Bodin in the field would have caused the results to be a little different. Hopefully, this curiosity would be put to rest in the next edition of Winter X Games.
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