Colorado halfpipe sculptors lauded for building “the very best pipe” at the Olympics
BONGPYEONG, South Korea — The PyeongChang Olympic halfpipe hatched historic contests with best-ever runs and first-ever trickery that harvested six American medals, three of them gold.
After each contest, athlete accolades rained on the pipe builders, a three-man team that includes Copper Mountain snow sculptors Mark Pevny and Jake Ingle. Shaun White, Chloe Kim and David Wise all heralded the super-sized halfpipe that enabled them to win in what turned out to be America’s best gold mine of these Olympics.
“It really allowed the riders to put together a run that maybe they envisioned but haven’t been able to do,” said 33-year-old Pevny of Denver, who spends his winters building and maintaining the pipe at Copper Mountain. “We wanted to give them a platform that was a long enough, wide enough and steep enough pipe for them to be able to make these the best comps ever.”
Pevny, Ingle and their Austrian pipe-cutting partner Alli Zehetner spent more than a month at the Phoenix Park resort in South Korea’s mountainous PyeongChang County, directing a team of 70 Koreans in building the pipe. Zehetner, who built the slopestyle venue for the Sochi Olympics and is in charge of the parks at Austria’s Kitzsteinhorn resort, as well as several World Cup halfpipes, handled the cutting for the snowboard contests. Ingle was in charge of the pipe for the ski contests, captaining the GPS-guided PistenBully snow groomer mounted with the Swiss-made Zaugg pipe groomer known as the “Pipe Monster.” Pevny handled the grooming of the bottom of the pipe.
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Copper Mountain pipe builders Jake Ingle, left, and Mark Pevny, right, joined Austria’s Alli Zehetner in building and maintaining the PyeongChang Olympic halfpipe. (Jason Blevins, The Denver Post)
CHLOE KIM of the USA on her first run in the Womens Snowboard Halfpipe finals Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at Phoenix Snow Park at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Photo by Mark Reis, ZUMA Press/The Gazette
Copper Mountain pipe builders Jake Ingle, left, and Mark Pevny, right, joined Austria’s Alli Zehetner in building and maintaining the PyeongChang Olympic halfpipe. (Jason Blevins, The Denver Post)
CHLOE KIM of the USA on her first run in the Womens Snowboard Halfpipe finals Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at Phoenix Snow Park at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Photo by Mark Reis, ZUMA Press/The Gazette