Things can get weird when skiers/skateboarders/snowboarders get obsessive about pulling off a trick. And I’m not talking about something common that we’ve all seen hundred times, even if it is gnarly. I’m talking about tricks nobody’s ever pulled or even thought of. There are times when that scenario can create an iconic moment like Tony Hawk sticking his 900 at the 1999 X Games. And then there are tricks where people step in and say, “Hey, do you really need to do this?”
Jesper Tjäder’s girlfriend is that voice of reason in the latter scenario. Well, to be specific, she told him “No, don’t do it,” but who’s keeping track?
“I said no. And then I said no again,” Judith Bergstrom explains. “But then he did it (anyway) and set this project in motion.”
The project is an evolution of something Tjäder made happen in the film Supervention 2 several years ago. He hit a rail made into a full loop and paid for it with multiple concussion checks. Some of the heaviest wipeouts from his sessions were tough to watch but Tjäder did eventually become the first to pull complete it. Now he’s decided to one-up himself by…cutting the top off of that loop. Literally. Just a giant rail that looks like a roller coaster track except it has a massive three-meter gap at the top where each end should be connected.
The open loop had been on his mind since the first project in Supervention 2. This time, however, Tjäder brought the experience of sticking his ride on that full loop years ago. As he put it, “I know what to do, just do it.” That experience made the open loop trick far less dramatic than the first time around with the exception of one wipeout that looked a lot worse than it actually was. And in the end, Jesper Tjäder rode away with another first.
