Snowboarding's Triple Cork Club

Over the last year, there has been a steady stream of "triple" trick footage virally spreading its way around the internet. It's been no time at all since we were wowed by Shaun White throwing down double corks in Whistler's super-pipe at the 2010 Winter Olympics. It's crazy that such an insanely technical trick could already seem passé!

Doubles are so Winter Olympics 2010

If you're unsure of what a "triple" actually is, it's a trick that rotates around more than one access. More traditional rotations (360, 720, 1080, etc) are flat spins on the horizontal access, however the axis of the rotation can also be "corked" onto the vertical plain, so that it becomes a hybrid of "rotating" (horizontally) and "flipping" (vertically). What makes the trick a double or triple, depends on the amount of times it corks on the vertical plane.

As well as there being a fair amount of criticism of how attractive the various triples have been, there's also be a lot of discussions about what actually constitutes a triple cork. Sometimes it looks like a corked rotation, sometimes a barrel roll and sometime like a triple backflip, with very little rotation incorporated. I'm not going to attempt to settle any of those arguments. Sure, there's a massive amount of soul and beauty in a big, floaty 180 or a straight method off a backcountry booter, but I can't help be impressed by the athleticism and skill needed to land any of these triples. They are MASSIVE tricks, and full respect to anyone who attempts them!

It really wasn't long after the Olympics in 2010 that Triple Corks were being attempted. There was a lot of excitement around an attempt by Nils Arvidsson in May 2010, the near-miss footage of his was followed swiftly in June by this from Torstein Horgmo, the worlds first triple:



And before long he was bring it out in competition, unsurprisingly winning the X Games Big Air:

Torstein Horgmo Triple Cork at X Games (Jan 2011)

By the next winter things were looking a little more refined and "corky", rather than being so "flippy". Mark McMorris was second member of the Triple Club:

Mark McMorris Triple Cork 1440 (March 2011)

So by the time X Games 2012 came around Mark and Torstein went head to head:





And, of course, there are now several more members of the club:

Seb Toots backside triple cork 1440 (April 2011)

Pat Burgener switch backside Triple cork 1440 (April 2011)

Sebastien Toutant's triple cork backside 1440 at Superpark 16 (May 2012)

Stale Sandbech triple underflip 1260 (May 2012)

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And, of course, we even had the famous footage of the relatively unknown Brit, Billy Morgan:

Billy Morgan triple rodeo (Dec 2011)

Okay, so who's going to land the first quadruple? The chances are we'll know by X Games 2013!

Thanks to whitelines.com - as always a great source of videos!

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