6th Grade - 2nd Place - Torstein Horgmo

All of the judges loved Skyler's essay. None of us know anything about snowboarding, but it is fun to read about his love for the sport. I hope you bump into Torstein one day, Skyler! Kylie

Skyler
Ecker Hill Middle School
6th Grade

If I Could Meet Anyone in the World, it Would be... Torstein Horgmo

If I could encounter anyone in the world, from any country, during any time period, it would be Torstein Horgmo. Wouldn’t it be cool for you to come across the first person to ever get a frontside triple cork? Ya it would! I want to meet this person because he is really good at snowboarding, and he seems like he would be a chill person to meet.

I would want Torstein to feel comfortable so I would insist that we meet at his hometown, Trondheim, Norway. This place would be important because it is his hometown and he would know the environment around him. Or we could meet at his home mountain, Vassfjellet. Here he would feel like he was going snowboarding with his friends.

The first question I would ask Torstein Horgmo would be, how does it feel when you are in the air on a frontside triple cork 1440? The reason I would ask this question is out of curiosity. I mean, imagine how it would feel if you are doing three flips in the air?

I would like Torstein Horgmo to know how his life changed history. Torstein affected me, my family, friends, the snowboard community and the world of snowboarding. He was the first person to successfully land a frontside triple cork on snow. That is pretty impressive. Still he has been the only rider except Mark McMorris to land a frontside triple cork 1440. That completely changed the progression of snowboarding. Now everybody is trying to catch up with him.

Torstein Horgmo started riding his snowboard in 1999. DC Shoe Company recognized his talent when he was young and sponsored him. He remained a amateur rider for a pretty long time. He was in the Park City's “I Ride Park City” video, which really kicked him off. He had the last part to the video. Having the last video part or first, means that you have some of the best talent out of the riders in the movie. Now today, Torstein is one of the best riders on the planet, and one of the two people to ever land a frontside triple cork 1440.

Torstein’s career has been amazing! He has won a number of events. One of Torstein’s favorite and one of his best events is the XGames. In 2008 He captured gold in Big Air. In semi-finals, Torstein beat his teammate, Travis Rice and then beat Kevin Pearce in the Finals. Also in the Dew Tour he won a gold in 2009. Unfortunately this year in Mens Slopestyle he placed sixth, but fell on both runs. However, he walked away with a first place medal in Big Air so he must be pretty happy with that. This year he placed third in the last Dew Tour stop and he won the overall Dew Cup. That means that in all of the other stops he did good and got the best scores total. Close behind him his Mark McMorris who is one of those two people to ever land a triple cork.

The progression of the sport right now is at an amazing height. At XGames last year, Halldor Helgason threw the first double cork 1260. Now if you don’t have a double cork, you can't get the top three. It is amazing how fast these riders are pushing the sport farther and farther and I think it is pretty cool to see. When Torstein did his triple cork, people had to step it up if they wanted to win. That is exactly what Mark McMorris did. Mark does not want to lose, he wants to win! No one I can think of would not want to win. That is what these guys do. They come into these competitions and they want to win!!

Torstein Horgmo is the most brave and the first person to ever do a triple cork. Thats why I would want to come face to face with him, wouldn’t you?