Extreme Exposure: Lindsey Vonn's ski record, Ryan Dungey's 24th win, more
In this week's edition of Extreme Exposure—a weekly column featuring news and photography from the world of action and outdoor sports—Lindsey Vonn, Kelly Clark and Ryan Dungey all get huge wins in their respective sports.
Playing the Weather
Competitors didn’t just battle one another during the first stop of the U.S. Grand Prix in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. this weekend. They fought Mother Nature, too, as inclement weather forced the postponement of a handful of events. When competition did resume Sunday, Olympic Champ Joss Christensen linked double cork 1080s to take the top spot in men’s Slopestyle skiing while Canadian Yuki Tsubota captured the women’s crown.
With wicked eastern Sierra weather doing its thing, the halfpipe finals were canceled altogether, so by the rulebook, the qualifying runs were counted as the final results, giving Gus Kenworthy the win headed into X Games this week. Japan’s Ayana Onozuka ended first on the women’s side, her second win of the year in pipe—she also won at the Dew Tour, Breckenridge in December.
And on the Snowboarding Side……
Kelly Clark, one of the most decorated women in U.S. snowboarding history (she won Gold in the pipe in 2002) turned back the clock and won the halfpipe at the U.S. Grand Prix in Mammoth Lakes this weekend. While the New England native’s Patriots weren’t able to pull through, Clark, 32, persevered and grabbed the early lead in the World Cup points standings.
Mammoth Lakes resident Brandon Davis led a U.S. sweep in Slopestyle ahead of Eric Willet and Chas Guldemond, respectively.
Vonn-tastic
The alpine racing season is a complete grind and, even at 31, Lindsey Vonn continues to prove that she's capable of sustaining herself through the long season. This weekend in Cortina, Italy was huge for the Minnesota native as she captured World Cup victories No. 74 and 75 as well as her 37th downhill win, the latter is a new record in the sport, one that had stood for nearly 40 years (she won the Super G on Sunday, taking back the overall World Cup points lead from Switzerland’s Laura Gut).
Vonn has found a lot of success in Cortina during her career, winning 11 times there and this weekend marked the third time she’s swept the downhill and Super G events in Northern Italy. “It has been incredible,” she said after. “I feel like all the speed weekends have been amazing. I’m just skiing really well, skiing confident.”
Big Boy Racing
The sport’s best racers are starting to lay claim to the Monster Energy Supercross series as Ryan Dungey went back-to-back for the 24th win of his career, extending his points lead to 13 in front of nearly 43,000 fans in Anaheim’s Angel Stadium. Dungey had to run down Chad Reed who finished runner up again. "I had to charge the first five laps," Dungey said. "Chad [Reed] was on it tonight, and I know he wanted to get his ninth win here in Anaheim."
In the 250SX Class, Cooper Webb kept his finger on the throttle with his third consecutive main event win and is starting to pull away in the overall points race, sporting an 18 point lead.
