With four jumps and three urban rail features, the men’s freeski slope finals at Breckenridge offered up a challenging course that saw a lot of the top guys struggling to get in a clean first run.

Alexis Godbout hurt himself at the second stop of the Dew Tour last year, but you could tell his injury was behind him with the way he was skiing here in Breckenridge.

“I lost a lot of weight so it’s easier on the body,” Godbout said. “I worked out all summer really hard, rode the bike and everything. So I’m feeling confident and strong and happy.”

He took over the lead in his first run with a score in the 80s, and he was able to improve upon his results and score 87.00 on his next run.

On the higher scoring run, Godbout started with a 2 on disaster 2 out, switch 4 on the rails, a stylish wall ride and he delivered on the last two jumps with a switch misty 9 right dub to a flat 9 dub Japan.

That held on until 17-year-old Nick Goepper dropped in.

His run went like this: switch 2 on blind 2 out on the down rail, to rodeo onto the down box, switch right double 9, into left double cork 10, into back 810 out of the up-rail, into switch left double cork 9, right double cork 12.

That run was a game-changer, and he quickly jumped into first at the time with his score of 88.00. The score held on Tom Wallisch dropped in for his final run. He was low in the ranks after falling on the first run, but he used the disadvantage as motivation.

“I like landing the first one, a little bit of pressure off,” Wallisch said. “But that pressure gets your heart going and the adrenaline is good.”

He delivered on his second with 270 pretzel 270 off into a blind 3 switch-up, switch right 9 high mute, double cork 10 high mute, blind 450 off the wall ride, finishing with back-to-back switch left to switch right double cork 10 Japan grabs.

He was rewarded with a score of 92.75 from the judges, bumping Goepper into second and Godbout finished third.

“The tricks are so crazy nowadays,” Wallisch said. “Everyone’s got a whole bag of double flips. I think it’s going to come down to a lot of technical rails and really clean grabs and clean landings. It’s not really easy to distinguish yourself from the rest of the field because everyone is doing really difficult runs.”

Wallisch has the overall lead heading into next month’s Pantech Invitational in Killington, Vermont. But if today was any indication of the season ahead, there will be a lot of talented guys looking to overtake him.

from allisports.com

Tom Wallisch 

WATCH TOM’S WINNING RUN ON HIS HOT DOGGERS  HERE: