All it did was make him more determined.
Hall, a Kalispell native, won his first race since the accident and got the prize he wanted most, winning the skier superpipe Tuesday night at the Winter X Games.
Hall won three gold medals in slopestyle and one in the 2001 big-air competition, but had never made it to the top of the podium in the superpipe, the event he covets the most. He came agonizingly close twice, taking silver last year and in 2003, making him want it even more.
Hall left no doubt this time, getting huge air out of the pipe for a 92.66 on his second run. No one could beat his score in the final go-round, leaving Hall a victory lap he's been waiting to make.
“It's been three years in the making for this night and I couldn't be happier,” Hall said. “I'm so stoked.”
Hall wasn't the only one in pain.
Defending champion Simon Dumont broke his pelvis in three places and ruptured his spleen attempting a 200-foot jump on a snowmobile tow-in last March. His back muscles still weakened from the accident, Dumont grimaced before and after each of his three runs, stretching and bending over as he tried to get rid of the shooting pain in his back.
The 19-year-old from Bethel, Maine, still managed to briefly take the lead with a 90 on his second run and ended up with a bronze, better than even he thought he'd get.
“I've had back problems before, but nothing like this so I just landed my 7s, got to the bottom and I couldn't even stand, my back was twitching and spasming and I had to lay down,” Dumont said. “It's been insane. I came out hurt and skiing 50 percent, so if I got third I couldn't expect much more.”
Canadian Blair Morgan set a Winter X Games record with his eighth consecutive medal, taking home his fifth snocross gold after Levi LaVallee fell off his snowmobile and couldn't find his key on the final lap.
Morgan got jammed at the start and dropped to fifth before working his way through the field. LaVallee had the lead from the start and had a nine-second lead over Morgan on the final lap when he came into a jump too flat and had his sled turn sideways. The key flew out of LaVallee's snowmobile and he had trouble finding it, giving Morgan a chance to pass and take the checkered flag.
“Levi took the hole shot and he was just gone, and I just worked my way up to second,” Morgan said. “Then all of a sudden things started getting gnarly, so I started going around the outside and it looks like it ate him up.”
Heavy snow during the day bogged down the superpipe, leaving organizers no choice but to turn the women's competition into a jam session.
Norwegian Grete Eliassen worked her way through the thick flakes and slow snow, landing a huge alley-oop 540 to repeat as champion.
“There was a lot of pressure because I won last year,” said Eliassen, a student at the University of Utah. “I just had to keep my head and keep my level of competition up. I was really trying to go as big as I could.”
Canadian Sarah Burke finished second.
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