BRECKENRIDGE — In 2013, after then 13-year-old snowboarding prodigy Chris Corning won every contest he entered, a reporter asked him if he was aiming for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
“I’m just thinking about my nearest goals before I move on to the next one,” he said through a mouthful of braces.
That one-contest-at-a-time approach is a hardened veteran’s perspective he kept as a mantra. Even after winning second in the Copper Grand Prix big air contest – with his pair of lofty triple corks placing him a mere podium away from making the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team — he said he was only thinking about the next event, at the Breckenridge Dew Tour.
Then the 18-year-old took second on Breckenridge’s notoriously technical, eight-feature slopestyle course, locking in his spot on U.S. Snowboarding’s Olympic slopestyle team and affirming his phenom status.
So now it’s time to coast and bask in his pending debut on the grandest of international stages, right? Nope.
“I’m just trying to keep a level head when I go home. Just take a deep breath and remember what you are trying to go for and really enjoy the moment and not try to get too far ahead of myself,” he said, aiming for the next slopestyle contests at Snowmass, Mammoth and the Aspen Winter X Games in January before he leaves for South Korea. “l need to think about this next contest, not the Olympics.”
Corning could barely walk before both the Copper and Breckenridge contests. He took an ugly slam onto his side on his final practice jump before the Copper Grand Prix finals, suffering a bad bruise on his hip and back. But he didn’t seem hurt when he flipped three times while spinning four times on the final of four jumps on Breckenridge’s Dew Tour slopestyle course.
He credits his resiliency to focus in the gym. For the last two years, he has worked the weights five days a week, most recently at the Park City Olympic training center, sometimes hitting the gym twice a day. It shows too. He’s easily 50 pounds heavier than most his teammates and competitors.
His strength, he said, enables him to throw bigger tricks on smaller jumps. And he’s able to withstand the brutal falls that inevitably come with soaring on a snowboard. Like the slam at Copper earlier this month.
“There are a lot of people who I don’t think would have been able to take that fall and still be able to ride in the contest and do well,” he said. “I was able to not break a bone in that fall and push through the pain. I’ve been working so hard in the gym and it’s paying off in my riding.”
U.S. Snowboarding’s slopestyle team will serve double-duty in PyeongChang, competing in both the Olympic debut of big air and the second appearance of slopestyle. Developing those dual skills has been a challenge, he said.
“It’s cool to have a chance to compete in two events but at the same it also kind of sucks because you have to do a lot more traveling and a lot more contests and you are a lot more busy throughout the year. So you don’t have time to do film or video parts or work on your skills because every week you are going to some far away place to do a scaffolding big air. And you are definitely not learning something there,” he said. “Then you travel to a different place for a slopestyle event.”
Denver snowboard designer and manufacturer Never Summer has been making boards for Corning since he was 7. The company didn’t even make kid-sized snowboards back then but they had heard about Corning, who used to ride almost every day at Echo Mountain when he was elementary and middle school.
The company built him custom boards for five seasons until he was big enough to ride Never Summer’s production boards.
“We have had other athletes riding our boards over the years – very talented riders for sure – but Chris has always been one that really stuck out,” said Never Summer co-founder Tim Canaday, who just received the specifications for Olympic-mandated limitations on company logos and top-sheet designs for Corning’s South Korea boards. “He’s so well spoken and such a great person to represent our brand. We have nothing but great expectations for him.”
A few years ago, his mom and dad, Laura and Brook, moved from Arvada to Silverthorne so Chris could be closer to the slopes. Just after they relocated, his coach joined the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club, so Chris moved even further west to train. For a while there, Chris was living and training in the Roaring Fork Valley, Laura was working as a court transcription expert in their new home in Silverthorne, and Brook was commuting from his mechanical engineering job in Denver. They’d get together on weekends. Now he’s back home. He graduated high school early and is taking online college courses through DeVry University.
Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club Coach Nichole Mason has been working with Corning for several years. She credits his unflappable work ethic for his success. If he was working on a trick, he’d skip lunch to stay on the snow. If the weather was miserable, he’d stay out and jump through the gray light.
“He would make sure he met his goal for the day and pushed through no matter what the conditions were like. So now, on contest days when the weather is not perfect, he pushes through hard tricks with a strong mental toughness,” said Mason, who this spring was named the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association’s snowboard coach of the year and overall development coach of the year.
Since he was a pre-teen, Mason said, Corning has focused on his goals. He adjusted his diet and developed a workout routine to keep those goals in reach.
“I’m so stoked for him,” said Mason, who brought her club’s snowboarders – Corning’s former club teammates – to Copper to see him compete in big air. “It’s been a really incredible journey for him and just to have been a part of that is very special for me.”
