EGRV 30 | Diamond Bowl

【The adrenaline hadn’t faded, the warmth of passion still lingered. The way Chi Yu looked at him was different, searingly hot.】

Diamond Bowl, a double-black diamond freeride zone.

“Next up is competitor number 19, Chi Yu, a local rider from Whistler!” the commentator continued with unabated enthusiasm after three straight hours. “He was the X Games Big Air champion in Aspen, Colorado in 2013, third place in the Mammoth Mountain Youth Freeride Challenge in 2014… oh, and the King of Corbet’s Couloir in 2013. This is a potential contender I personally like very much. We haven’t seen him in an official competition for three years. Let’s see how he performs today…”

Gao Yi gritted his teeth. “Here we go.”

“In today’s conditions, will he attempt a 720?” Xiang Weiwei asked in a low voice.

“He’ll definitely attempt it, but whether he can land it…” That was another question entirely.

Seeing the crowd of spectators also getting tense, Gao Yi comforted her. “It’s fine. Knowing him, even if he does it and doesn’t land it perfectly, he won’t have any regrets. This is just the beginning, after all.”

Chi Yu accelerated downhill.

Following yesterday’s practice, he, like Max, chose the rider’s right side, without losing any speed. The difference was, he skied a shorter distance, choosing a cliff drop that was higher up. He was in no hurry. Only at the last moment did he lean slightly forward, press his front edge, open his arms, initiate the take-off, tuck his legs, and grab his board.

Gao Yi and Liang Muyie had watched him practice yesterday, so they weren’t surprised. But the rest of the spectators let out a collective gasp.

One rotation, two rotations, extend, spot the landing, and land.

Clean, beautiful, and without a moment’s hesitation. So solid.

On the massive ice sheet, he nonchalantly cleared a forty-foot cliff littered with loose rocks, the height of a four-story building.

The commentator’s voice shot up an octave. “My god, unbelievable! On that jump, the rider clearly knew how much speed he needed to clear the rocks below. We see cork 720s all the time, but in these conditions, in today’s competition, this is the first, and I dare say, the only one… Absolutely incredible.”

“Holy shit!!!” Gao Yi leaped up, almost injuring his leg again. “That was better than any of his attempts yesterday. This kid, he really is a competition rider.”

But his breath was still caught in his throat; he couldn’t relax just yet. Chi Yu flew past the next two cliffs, so fast it felt like he wasn’t even skiing but in free fall, his edges only occasionally making contact with the mountain.

Between heaven and earth was a vast expanse of white. Staring at it for too long created an optical illusion.

“Two, three… okay, okay, hold it!!” Gao Yi watched as he followed yesterday’s practice, choosing the path on the rider’s left, the audience’s right, at the fork. It was a less-traveled area that, from this angle, didn’t even look like a path. Because of its narrowness, it demanded extreme precision.

“Damn, he’s so fast today. Is he on a different board than yesterday…?” The experts in the crowd were already getting excited.

Indeed. Liang Muyie had filmed him yesterday, and he had a photographic memory for footage he’d shot. Compared to yesterday, with the mountain empty, he was carrying full speed, breaking through like a hot knife through butter.

Chi Yu did a backside 360 off the fourth cliff drop. Before the commentators could even start their analysis, in less than half a second, he quickly took off from the next cliff and linked it with a frontside 360 indy grab.

Indy grab, a classic grab for park snowboarders, and Chi Yu’s personal favorite.

“YEAH!!!” A cheer erupted from the crowd.

Five airs, thirty-seven seconds, covering over three hundred feet of vertical, the steepest section of Diamond Bowl. The warmer weather and lack of fresh snow meant more exposed rock, restricting the terrain. A landing zone that was normally two meters wide became one meter of snow and one meter of rock in these conditions. The challenge of the course lay in balancing speed and precision.

Chi Yu had speed, he had accuracy, and he had style. A flawless run.

Liang Muyie was glad he hadn’t taken the binoculars from Gao Yi. At a naked-eye distance, although he couldn’t see Chi Yu’s face or subtle movements, he could take in the entire mountain face.

The small orange dot leaped and weaved through rocks and trees, like a falling leaf or a feather. Between each jump, he possessed a strange rhythm and flow, like a dance. A free dance on 120 centimeters of hardened steel edges.

The scoring was happening in real-time. Most judges gave him scores over 85. Gao Yi said excitedly that he was pretty sure the best trick of the day would be his too.

Liang Muyie watched him descend to the finish line, then suddenly remembered something and glanced to his right.

The blonde rider in the green jacket, Max, watched as his top-ranking score was pushed to second place by Chi Yu, but he showed no sign of disappointment. On the contrary, a subtle smile played on his lips, with even a hint of approval.

The large live-feed screen set up nearby was replaying Chi Yu’s BS Cork 720. The remote drone footage from a DJI made it possible to observe the rider’s aerial form up close.

The information bar displayed his basic info:
“Yu Chi, Age: 22, Home Mountain: Whistler-Blackcomb.”

On the big screen was Chi Yu’s教科书般完美的斜轴两周转体 (textbook-perfect off-axis double rotation). As he rotated to face the mountain, he revealed the base of his board—black with red lettering, five letters with a bold, red ‘T’ in the middle.

The commentator was excitedly describing how standard his 720 was, but someone in the know among the spectators murmured, “Team T.”

Team T was the name of the Mont-Tremblant freestyle snowboarding youth team. Like Max, Chi Yu had been coached by a notorious Quebecois coach named Thierry Tussaud. This was the first big mountain freestyle competition board Chi Yu had owned during his youth career. 159cm in length, with a stiffness of 9, its edges had an extremely strong grip on ice. The board was five years old, but it was still a trusty weapon.

Tussaud was extremely strict, with his own unique teaching system. About thirty-some kids had joined the training team at the same time, but only half of them earned his approval and successfully “graduated” from Team T. Tussaud himself was a sponsored rider for NITRO. His graduation gift to them was this custom NITRO freestyle directional board. It was Chi Yu’s first medal, the place where his dream began.

And today, the dream continued. In a way, it was symbolic.

The people around him were focused on the replay and didn’t notice, but there was a slight flicker in Max’s otherwise perfect composure.

Chi Yu skied into the spectator area. He didn’t even spray the snow wall to shower the cameras like every other competitor before him. He simply took off his goggles, raised a hand, and gave a calm wave to the camera.

A reporter couldn’t help but say to him, “That 720 was insane!”

Chi Yu skied towards the crowd, and the sound of congratulations was incessant.

“God Yu, you’re a beast!”
“Good job!”
“Dude, that was awesome!”

Several other friends he often skied with also came over to hug and celebrate with him. A little kid he had taught even gave him a big bear hug. A smile had just appeared on Chi Yu’s face when the enthusiastic kid pressed on his arm, causing him to grimace in pain. Seen from above, with Chi Yu’s orange jacket at the center, the crowd of well-wishers surrounded him tightly, growing larger and larger like a rolling snowball.

Liang Muyie hadn’t intended to get involved in this scene, but since he was originally standing next to Gao Yi, he was now firmly trapped at the center of the crowd. Chi Yu finished his round of thank-yous and finally managed to squeeze through.

Xiang Weiwei hugged him first. “That was amazing! I knew you could do it!”

Gao Yi also hopped on one leg and gave him a tight hug. He was suddenly overcome by an indescribable feeling. The congratulatory words he had rehearsed came out choked and almost incoherent. “You were brilliant, Chi Yu, you were truly brilliant.”

When they first met, spring snow was piling up in Banff. It was then that Gao Yi learned that Chi Yu hadn’t been on the competition circuit for several years because he had been seriously injured in a car accident and had been bedridden for nearly a year. He had started his rehabilitation by learning to walk again. From the time of the accident, it had been almost a year without training, and his leg strength had weakened significantly.

Because of the previous injury to his left leg, his physical therapy had been very conservative. He hadn’t been able to use his left leg for a year, compensating entirely with his right. The strength imbalance between his legs had become even more pronounced, and he would often feel tired, especially when skiing deep powder which required power from the left leg. The aerial flips he could once do effortlessly in the park were all gone.

At that time, he had moved to Banff alone, rented the cheapest place he could find, and bought a used Highlander with his previous savings. He posted in group chats to find students to teach for money while undergoing rehabilitation training on his own.

His relationship with skiing was pathological back then. When he had a bad training day, the sight of white snow would make him physically nauseous. But like clockwork, every night he followed the doctor’s instructions for his rehab exercises, and during the day, he forced himself to carry his board up the mountain.

No responsible doctor would promise him that he could return to competition and regain his former competitive level. They would only tell him that recovery is a long process and that he would eventually get through it. But sports rehabilitation is a path no one has walked before, a book with a beginning but no end. No one ever told him how long the process would be or how he was supposed to get through it.

In the second month after Gao Yi met him, he ended up moving in with him. In the morning, he would always make an extra portion of breakfast for Chi Yu. In the evening, after coming down from the mountain, he would stretch and relax while Chi Yu continued his rehab exercises in the small space on the floor. The two of them would often be like this, without saying a word, from dawn till dusk. Gao Yi would watch his clothes become completely soaked with sweat, and at the end of the day, he would toss them into the laundry basket. At the end of that ski season, they parted ways in the parking lot of their cabin in Banff. He was in a car his friends had rented to go to the airport, laughing and chatting all the way. But when he looked back, he saw Chi Yu, all alone, loading six snowboards and all his belongings into his newly bought used Highlander. It was five in the morning, the sky was just beginning to lighten, and there wasn’t another soul on the road. The road was straight, merging into the mountains, seemingly without end. Soon, both Chi Yu and the Highlander had shrunk to a dot and disappeared from view.

Now, at the bottom of Diamond Bowl, the wind howled, and Chi Yu had returned with the will to win. The past scenes flashed before him like a slideshow. That road, Gao Yi thought, perhaps it did have an end after all.

Chi Yu just kept his head down, saying thank you. Thank you, thank you both, thank you all.

After he finished his thanks, he turned as if to escape, but as he turned, his eyes met Liang Muyie’s.

The adrenaline hadn’t faded, the warmth of passion still lingered. The way Chi Yu looked at him was different, searingly hot.

Liang Muyie opened his arms, inviting him for a hug.

Chi Yu had no choice but to put an arm around his shoulders and say a perfunctory thank you.

But the other man lowered his head and asked, right next to his left ear, “Does your arm hurt?”