American Skiers Sweep Half Pipe On Home Soil

This past week was good for fans of the U.S. Ski Team.

On Saturday, December 16th, U.S. Ski Team athletes swept the podium during the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix halfpipe finals at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

The podium consisted of Alex Ferreira, Hunter Hess, and Birk Irving—all members of the U.S. Ski Team halfpipe squad.

Additional U.S. Ski Team members Nick Goepper and David Wise rounded out the top five.

While Ferreira's continued halfpipe dominance might've been the headline of the day (Ferreira has won two World Cup halfpipe events in a row), Goepper, who previously announced his retirement from skiing, was the star of an impressive and somewhat surreal underdog story.

Goepper spent years as a top-tier slopestyle skier before retiring from competitive skiing this past winter. Then, amidst an apparent social media rebrand during the summer—Goepper's once buttoned-up social media presence took a delightful turn for the silly—he said he would return to competition, this time in a new discipline: halfpipe.

The move was surprising for several reasons. For one, Goepper did decide to retire, a decision professional skiers typically don't walk back on. Two, halfpipe skiing is the most specialized version of competitive freestyle skiing—athletes usually don't succeed in this discipline unless they've been focusing on it for over a decade.

But Goepper, with his fourth-place finish in halfpipe this weekend, proved that his comeback is much more than a publicity stunt.

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