Team USA
The saying goes, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” But in the case of freeskier Devin Logan it’s more like, “Those who can’t ‘Dew,’ judge.”
While practicing in the halfpipe for Dew Tour, the defending slopestyle champion had a scare when she caught the lip of the pipe attempting a left 900 and landed hard on her shoulder. She was carried down the mountain by stretcher and sent to the hospital for a run of tests.
Before even receiving the all clear, the 21-year-old dual-discipline athlete was already thinking about getting back on the mountain in time for slopestyle qualifiers. She did, but despite putting a run to her feet, her second one put her into the fence.
Logan said, “I knew it wasn’t going to be up to par,” and made the decision to pull out of the competition.
“I was just happy to get out there and try, but it was really hard to pull out of pipe and see all my friends ski,” she said.
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| “@dlogan: In the booth again helping out! @DewTour #dewtour #judges #mensslopestyle” |
Thanks to the judges certification she completed in 2012 — after blowing out her knee and ending the ski season prematurely — she would be seeing her friends ski from up in the judges’ booth.
“Since it’d been a whole minute since I was out of the competition,” Logan said she was happy to take a familiar seat in the judge’s chair to help score women’s finals. Besides, getting a different perspective on skiing is what Logan thinks helped her take home the silver at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.
“Not only did it keep me in the ski scene, but it showed me what judges are looking for,” she said. “It was cool to get that inside perspective and see what they’re talking about.”
Since having earned the event’s first Olympic silver medal, it seemed as if everyone was talking about Logan.
“After winning the medal it was just go, go, go,” Logan remembered. “So this summer I knew I was going to need time off to ensure I didn’t get burned out.”
She signed up for summer classes at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, went on vacations with friends and, according to her, “actually put on a bathing suit instead of going up to Mount Hood or Whistler and training all summer.”
Having that time off, she said, “made me want to ski more. The love for it comes out. So when grand orix and Dew Tour were coming up, I was itching to get there. It lights that spark again.”
Logan admitted that with that spark does come some pressure. How could it not when she set the bar so high? But, “pleasing myself is the main priority,” she said.
“Enjoying the career that we have and the opportunities that we have. Success comes from that.”
And hopefully getting to try out some new tricks again — something Logan has wanted to do for a while. “Because I wanted to make it to Sochi, I didn’t want to jeopardize it with new tricks. Last year was so busy but now there’s finally time to do more training.”
With more training hopefully comes a spot on the Olympic halfpipe team in 2018, something she plans to make a priority.
“It lit a fire under me that I was one spot away from making the pipe team last year,” Logan said. “So that’s a priority this season.”
In the end, even though there might be pressures, she said she has to “remember why I’m doing it, and be happy with the run I give. And if I’m having a bad day, I can just think back to February. I’m a silver medalist, and no one can take that away from me.”
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