It was always in the cards with this year’s Audi Nines setup.
In fact, it felt almost inevitable.
David Wise has broken the record for highest air.
Wise, a skier, soared a massive 11.7 meters (38 feet, 4 inches) above the coping of the Audi Nines quarterpipe to banked landing, the highest air yet on this style of jump.
“I was just enjoying myself and I started going a little higher each time,” said Wise. “I never got to the point where I was terrified. I eventually got some butterflies, but butterflies in a good way. We just kept going higher and higher. It was really nice to have a measuring system in place so I could do a jump, find out immediately how high I was, and then go do another jump.”
In doing so, Wise eclipses Simon Dumont’s previous record of 35 feet 3 feet. While that doesn’t seem like much, when traveling upwards against gravity, it is a lot!
If we’re comparing the two, Wise didn’t land in the same quarterpipe he took off from, rather a higher banked landing. According to the press release, “the ramp on which Wise achieved his high air was a modified version with a banked landing to increase the safety of the jump. The design of the feature took cues from a similar obstacle used by Danny Way to set the current world record quarterpipe air in skateboarding, and incorporated input from legendary snowboarder Terje Håkonsen, the current record holder in his sport.”
Regardless of the setup difference and debate that may come from it, that was massive.