Food poisoning suffered on Sunday morning marked an early end to Park City freeskier Marin Hamill’s Aspen X Games.
Due to the illness, Hamill was unable to compete in Sunday morning’s women’s slopestyle competition. She couldn’t continue after a few practice runs on the course.
Hamill won’t leave Aspen empty-handed however, winning the gold medal in Friday afternoon’s knuckle huck competition, held with all the events at Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain.
The win is the first of Hamill’s two-year-and-counting X Games career. She finished in fifth place in the event last year. Hamill was originally an alternate for this year’s knuckle huck competition.
Hamill’s switch tail-butter, nose-butter seven trick on her first run on Friday sealed her win, in what was a timed, best trick format. In that trick, she started backwards, did a full rotation while dragging the tails of her skis on the ground, then did another full rotation.
Hamill feels confident in her skiing headed into the Milan Olympics in a few weeks, which will be her second Games — 2022 in Beijing.
“It meant a lot,” Hamill said about winning gold on Friday. “Winning X Games gold is always very special to all the athletes. Knuckle huck is one of my favorite events.”
Hamill appreciates the newness of knuckle huck. She competes in big air and slopestyle FIS World Cups during the rest of the season.
“It’s just fun to do something different,” she added. “I think knuckle huck definitely offers more creativity to the athletes. … We just kind of get to do whatever we want and don’t have to worry about the normal stuff that we worry about at a FIS event like switching all four directions.”
Hamill made sure to use her alternate status at first for the knuckle huck competition as added fuel to her fire.
With Hamill landing her most difficult trick on her first run on Friday, she was able to throw some of her favorite tricks as the event wore on, like the zero spin.
Hamill and the rest of the U.S. freeski team will jet off to Milan on Friday. They will get fitted for their team uniforms and head up to Livigno to get used to the competition venues.
“I’m super excited,” Hamill said. “We had a few months of very stressful competitions. … I was the top qualifier for the Games on the U.S. women’s slopestyle and big air team, which is very nice.”
Hamill said she’s “honored” to be leading the U.S. women’s freeski team into the Milan Games. She’s the only returning Olympian of the four women competing for Team USA. Hamill finished in 12th place in the 2022 Beijing Games’ slopestyle competition and 14th in big air.
Hamill anticipates the Milan Olympics to be extremely different from Beijing in 2022, due to the Beijing Games having COVID restrictions. She’ll be happy to lend a helping hand to any of her teammates seeking some sage Olympic advice.
“I think I’ll treat it like any other FIS contest I go to,” Hamill said. “Just create a run that suits my skiing and my style to show my best tricks and hopefully land runs. I would really like to make finals in slopestyle because that’s where I got hurt in Beijing.”
Hamill has done some spring skiing once before in Livigno, and loved it.
The Park City freeskier is excited to represent the town once more on the world stage, like fellow freeskiers Zoe Atkin, Mac Forehand and Alex Hall, all of whom won X Games gold medals over the weekend.
“Being from Park City and seeing all my teammates and friends that are from Park City crush at X Games is amazing,” Hamill said. “It just shows how strong of skiers come out of Park City, Utah. … It’ll be really fun to go to the Olympics with them (fellow Park City freeskiers), and make Park City proud.”
The women’s slopestyle and big air finals in Livigno will be held on Feb. 9 and 16, respectively.