Two-time Olympic gold medalist David Wise soared to a world record for the highest air on a quarterpipe, reaching 38 feet, 4 inches at a skiing and snowboarding freestyle event in Austria on Monday.
Wise, a freestyle skier whose specialty is the halfpipe, enjoyed optimal weather to pull off a straight air tail grab on the modified quarterpipe at the Audi Nines, a weeklong “progression session” for skiers and snowboarders at Solden and Obergurgl-Hochgurgl.
“There’s a moment where your mind goes into autopilot and you’re going way too fast into a feature,” Wise, who is from Reno, Nev., said in the video. “You don’t even let yourself be afraid because you’re like, ‘This is nuts. This is beyond crazy.’”
The video shows virtually every angle of the jump and the incredible big air he attained.
“I was just enjoying myself and I started going a little higher each time,” Wise said in a statement sent to For The Win Outdoors. “I never got to the point where I was terrified. I eventually got some butterflies, but butterflies in a good way. We just kept going higher and higher.
“It was really nice to have a measuring system in place so I could do a jump, find out immediately how high I was, and then go do another jump.”
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The previous quarterpipe world record of 35 feet, 5 inches was set by Simon Dumont of Maine in 2008 on a 38-foot quarterpipe. He landed on the same transition from which he launched. Wise launched from a 32.8-foot quarterpipe and landed on a banked landing surface designed to increase the safety of the jump.
“The design of the feature took cues from a similar obstacle used by Danny Way to set the current world record quarterpipe air in skateboarding, and incorporated input from legendary snowboarder Terje Håkonsen, the current record holder in his sport,” Audi Nines stated in a news release.
Photos courtesy of Audi Nines.
