Don't Try This at Home

Franz Lidz

December 22, 1997

Haakonsen's specialty is the half-pipe, one of two snowboard events to be contested in Nagano. (The other is the slalom, patterned after the gated ski race.) A variety of moves are performed in the half-pipe, including the one shown here, in which a boarder rides fakey when he launches off the lip (1) and does a front flip (2) followed by a full rotation (3-6). The ever-modest Haakonsen refers to his signature move as "what other people call the Haakonflip."