I-Pod’s Sunday Night Slam

There are times that it becomes obvious that the bar in halfpipe snowboarding has been raised way, way, too high. Last night during a contest in Aspen, Iouri Podladtchikov, showed us just what can happen when a small mistake is made while competing at this level. He was down for 20 minutes and (after a complete check up at hospital) reportedly broke only his nose. We’re sincerely hoping that is all and that he has a quick, complete recovery. But it begs the same old question: how many more traumatic brain injuries have to go down before we all decide that enough is enough on the whole bigger, faster, higher progression in the snowboard halfpipe?