A fiercely contested battle for the gold medal at the Dew Tour’s men’s slopestyle final at Copper Mountain in Colorado on Friday came down to two Park City skiers in Colby Stevenson and Alex Hall.
Hall scored a 95.25 on his third and final run to push Stevenson into second place, but Stevenson responded with a 96.25 on the last run of the day to clinch the gold medal.
“It’s so insane, the amount of years I’ve been doing Dew Tour and never had a good result,” Stevenson said during a post-competition interview streamed by the Dew Tour. “Tore my shoulder out in 2018 on the last jump in the finals, got fourth two years ago when we had it here.
“Coming down to the last run, I don’t know if I’ve ever clutched up like that watching Alex get that 95. I was trying not to look at the screen and focusing on this.”
Stevenson and Hall were two-thirds of an American sweep in the event after Nick Goepper landed in third place. Stevenson has already punched his ticket to the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February along with teammate Mac Forehand due to their placement in the world rankings, while Hall made a good case for himself.
“It’s insane, all three Americans on top,” Stevenson said in a post-competition interview streamed by the Dew Tour. “It’s different every competition, but yeah, it just shows that our team has been putting in work and we’re ready for what’s to come.”
Hall commended Stevenson for his performance knowing that Hall put together his best possible run. Stevenson just happened to barely one-up him.
“It was great, it was super fun to have that battle with Colby,” Hall said in an interview with The Park Record. “I felt really good after I landed it, I just knew I pretty much put it down exactly how I wanted to put it down. And then I knew it was all up to Colby to see what happened then. He ended up putting his run down even cleaner than he did before, and he ended up winning, which was super sweet.”
Hall ended up winning a gold medal as well, just not in slopestyle. Hall, who won this year’s Newschoolers Skier of the Year award, finished in first place in the ski streetstyle event. His grinds, style and flair throughout the 35-minute jam session impressed the judges enough to hand him first place.