Blunck opens competition season with fifth place finish at Copper

“Now it’s all about styling it out and going as big as possible”

Homegrown halfpipe skier and current U.S. Ski Team member Aaron Blunck has a big month ahead of him, with the Dew Tour kicking off this weekend and a shot at the Winter Olympics well within reach.
As a result, Blunck took the opportunity to get back into competition mode with the North Face Park and Pipe Open Series event in halfpipe at Copper Mountain the weekend of December 6-8.
But early on in the competition, the plan almost backfired as Blunck crashed on his opening qualifier run.
“I was pretty bummed out about that but I just decided to change up my run a little bit and make sure I qualify for finals,” says Blunck.
He took a couple of his bigger moves out of his run for his second attempt and kept it clean, just squeaking into the finals.
Blunck woke up the next day sore from his crash and low in energy and decided to scale back his approach to his finals run throughout his practice sessions.
“I decided to take things mellow throughout training and kept it basic,” says Blunck. “I wasn’t necessarily feeling it.”
Following his practice runs, Blunck took a break and as he waited to start his first finals run he got a “sudden jolt of energy.”
Blunck seized on his newly found stoke and proceeded to fly, somewhat, by the seat of his pants through his first finals run. After his first hit, Blunck carried speed into the pipe wall and admits he lost his focus as he lifted off. While a left side 9 was the plan, he recognized his height and rotation and instantly decided to throw a left 1080 instead.
He did it again lower down the pipe turning a right 9 into a right 1080 and landed it clean to finish with a score of 85.
“I went bigger than I had gone all season,” says Blunck.
Feeding off his new energy, Blunck looked to go even bigger and add another trick to his run on his second finals attempt. Unfortunately, he popped too far off the wall at one point and landed flat but his initial score of 85 was good enough to finish him in fifth place on the day.
“I definitely accomplished what I wanted to,” says Blunck. “I wasn’t looking to go for glory. It got me stoked for Dew Tour and put the fire in my belly. Not winning gave me that extra drive going into this weekend.”
Blunck is in Breckenridge now training for the Dew Tour stop there and has his competition run in place. Now it’s just about fine-tuning it.
“ It’s the same run I finished last season with,” says Blunck. “Now it’s all about styling it out and going as big as possible.”