Steve Omischl
WHEN YOUR EVENT BOILS DOWN TO 3.5 DIZZYING SECONDS OF EXHILARATING HANG TIME, YOU NEED TO THINK IN SLOW MOTION IF YOU WANT TO LAND ON YOUR FEET.

THAT’S OF COURSE IF YOU’RE JUST AN AVERAGE JUMPER. Steve Omischl was getting as flippy as a bottle in a flair bartending competition, jumping off ramps in his backyard before aerial skiing was even considered a sport. For Steve-O twisting artfully in the wind is an automatic reflex. Omischl is one of aerial skiing’s top guns, having earned enough glittering baubles on the World Cup Tour to fill a Tiffany’s display case.

The five-time national champ’s Olympic showings haven’t been as uplifting: in Salt Lake City he was still learning to fly and finished 11th; in Turin a brazen trick decision backfired and he missed the finals, ending up 20th. This coming February in Vancouver Omischl plans to shake that Winter Games monkey off his back and land on the podium where he belongs.

What’s the main lesson you learned from the last Olympics?

Don’t get ahead of myself. I tried to do a hard jump in the qualifications instead of doing my bread and butter, a jump I would normally have a very high percentage of landing. I chose a more difficult jump because I was anticipating doing an even harder jump in the finals. I bit off more than I could chew. So if you’re going to roll the dice wait at least until you get into the finals.

Other than sessions with a sports psychologist, what else are you doing to prepare mentally for Vancouver?

My whole summer was based around being calm, whether that’s preparing for the next World Cup Tour or that big event that’s going to happen in February. Any competition is no different than any other training day. The biggest thing is trying to understand and accept that.

What was the hairiest crash landing you’ve witnessed?

My teammate Jeff Bean [landed headfirst and] broke his neck. It is every athlete’s greatest fear. It was the worst possible way you could land. He had hairline fractures on a couple of his vertebrae, but they healed and it didn’t affect the spinal cord. I’ve had three teammates in the last five years break their necks. Two of them had to have their vertebrae fused and are back jumping. It’s pretty crazy, it’s a gnarly stat, but I honestly believe that my sport is safer than luge, skeleton or alpine skiing. I mean every sport has its injuries—I guess curling would be the exception.

Hey now, you can your hurt your wrists curling! Tony Hawk landing a 900 in skateboarding was a game changer in his sport, what was an equivalent moment in aerials?

There’s never been one person who has done something that other people aren’t working on at the same time. But Nicolas Fontaine in 2001 was the first one to do quad flips on snow. In my generation I was the first guy to do a double twist on the last flip. I don’t know how people see it but I feel I paved the way for that opportunity to do more twists. And there’s a guy from the U.S. - Jeret Peterson - who does three twists in the middle flip which is very impressive and extremely difficult.

Do you think in slo-mo when you’re whirling around up there?

When things slow down you’re jumping at a very high level.

You’re very sharp if you are in that state and you put yourself in a very good position to do a nice jump.It means you’ve done an incredible amount of jumps to get to that point. The more jumps you do, the more time you think you have in the air to do things.