Amidst all of the chaos which was my life last week (I exaggerate, it really wasn't all that chaotic but it's such a good lead in), our houseguest from Montana, Kevin Connolly, (one of our many houseguests) won the silver medal in the X Games on Saturday.Very cool.
I got to hold an X Games silver medal. It's heavy. Which accounts for how Lindsey Jacobellis' lip got split during her medal ceremony. But that's another story.
Kevin is pretty incredible. He was born without legs and has had quite the adventurous life. He has hitch-hiked through New Zealand and is currently a student at MSU in Bozeman, Montana.
We went out to X Games on Saturday, just us and 70.000 other fans (Saturday was Winter X's record breaking attendance day), to watch the mono-skier competition, two qualifying heats and the final. The first heat consisted of an individual skier against the clock and during this heat, it became clear that the course was taking a toll on the monoskis, with lots of falls. (Interestingly, there were even more falls and injuries the next day during the Skier Cross qualifying runs.)
The second heat was supposed to be made up of the top eight finishers from the first heat but not enough competitors were able to finish.
In addition, the US Disabled Ski Team were late arriving due to travel problems involving the Aspen airport (another story for another time but suffice it to say that a lot of people are having problems with the Aspen airport this season!) so they only had time to slip the course, not actually run it.
Due to these complications, the second heat was modified so that it was two races with three skiers in each race. Kevin was racing Kevin Bramble, his arch rival, and Sarah Will (the race was a combined men's and women's event). Kevin C. took the lead out of the gate but was then passed by Kevin B. who opened up a slight lead. Remembering how many skiers had fallen in the first round, I started yelling, "Fall! Fall! Fall!" at the video monitor which was focused on Kevin B leading the three skiers much further up the mountain. No sooner did I utter the third "Fall!" when . . .
Yep, Kevin B. fell. We went crazy. Pete, Kevin C.'s support crew, turned to me, exclaiming, "You made that happen!! You're a witch!!" Laurie, another of our houseguests, got the whole thing on video.
The crazy part of it was that the first two finishers from this heat advanced to the final so there was no reason for Kevin B. to be going all out like that. He was passed by both Kevin C. and Sarah and was done for the day.
In the final, Tyler Walker led start to finish but Kevin C. kept the pressure on and took silver, coming in only 0.062 seconds behind Tyler.
Here are some more pictures of Kevin:
1 comment:
This was so cool. Kevin is such an "All-American" athlete. I'll be rooting for him next year.
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