James Machon (skier)

Last updated

James Machon
Personal information
NicknameMach [1]
NationalityBritish
Born (1990-11-23) 23 November 1990 (age 33)
Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
EducationBamford Primary School [2]
Alma mater Leeds Metropolitan University [3]
Height1.76 m (5 ft 9+1⁄2 in)
Weight75 kg (165 lb; 11.8 st)
Website www.jamesmachon.blogspot.com
Sport
CountryGreat Britain
Sport Freestyle skiing
Event Halfpipe
ClubGB Freeski team
Coached byPat Sharples
Jamie Matthew
Updated on 17 February 2014

James Machon (born 23 November 1990) is a freestyle skier who competes in the halfpipe, his first Olympics was the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Contents

Biography

Machon was born on 23 November 1990, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. [4] He was schooled at Bamford Primary School, [2] and went to Leeds Metropolitan University. [3] He started skiing at the age of 6. Between the age of 6 and until he was 14, went on annual ski holidays with his family. [4] He began practising freestyle skiing in the Sheffield freestyle skiing park when he was 15 years old. [4] Half-pipe skiing is snow ski on a half-pipe. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and has been approved to be an official sport at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

In 2006 Machon entered his first British Championships, and in the period from 2009 to 2013 (inclusive), Machon won four consecutive British Halfpipe Championships. [4] At the start of the Olympic qualifying season, Machon was ranked in the top 15 by the Association of Freeskiing Professionals, a position he feels is his "greatest sporting achievement so far". [5] Shortly before the selection for the 2014 Winter Olympics, Machon was recovering from a severe [2] knee injury, [6] he had a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament, which kept him from competing for eight months; [2] [7] it was torn in training in Austria. [3] Machon said that his competing after he tore his ligament was "looking virtually impossible", but he was happy he overcame the injury. [7]

Olympics

Machon's Olympic debut was at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, [4] which was also the first time skiing halfpipe had been at an Olympics. [8] He competed on 18 February 2014 [9] in the halfpipe, an event in freestyle skiing. [4] He finished 23rd. [10]

Family

Machon's brother, Robert, also skis competitively, and is a member of the England Team. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics</span>

Freestyle skiing has been contested at the Winter Olympic Games since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Burke</span> Canadian freeskier (1982–2012)

Sarah Jean Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier who was a pioneer of the superpipe event. She was a five-time Winter X Games gold medallist, and won the world championship in the halfpipe in 2005. She successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to have the event added to the Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was considered a medal favourite in the event. Burke died following a training accident in Utah in 2012.

Rosalind Groenewoud is a Canadian freeskier, known as Roz G in the action sports world. She is the 2011 FIS World Champion in halfpipe, Groenewoud is also a 2012 Winter X Games champion x 2 and has 3 silver and two bronze medals from X Games competitions in halfpipe. She won the AFP Overall Championship in 2009 & 2010 and AFP Halfpipe Overall Ranking in 2012. Groenewoud is a two-time Olympian, 2014 and 2018. She is the first woman to design her own pro-model freestyle ski with the female owned ski company Coalition Snow.

David Wise is an American freestyle skier. He is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a five-time X Games Gold Medalist. In 2014, Wise won his third consecutive gold medal at Winter X Games XVIII in Aspen, Colorado, before heading to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. There, he became the first Olympic gold medalist in the Men's Freeski Halfpipe, which debuted in the Winter Games that year. In 2018, after struggling both personally and professionally since his win in Sochi, Wise won his fourth gold medal at the X Games just before he left for PyeongChang to defend his Olympic title. After a sub-par qualifying competition that placed him in the fifth drop-in position for the finals, Wise failed to complete each of his first two runs due, in both cases, to a binding malfunction. On his third and final run, Wise completed a career-best run to take the gold medal, the second Olympic gold medal of his career, with a score of 97.20.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Half-pipe skiing</span> Sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe

Half-pipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors perform a series of tricks while going down the pipe. The current world record for highest jump in a half-pipe is held by Joffrey Pollet-Villard, with 26 feet 3 inches. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. David Wise of the United States of America became the first Olympic champion in this discipline with a total of 92.00 points.

Arielle Townsend Gold is an American Olympic medalist snowboarder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayumu Hirano</span> Japanese snowboarder (born 1998)

Ayumu Hirano is a Japanese Olympic champion and three-time Olympic medalist snowboarder and Olympic skateboarder. He won the silver medal in the superpipe in 2013 Winter X Games XVII at the age of 14, becoming the youngest medalist in X Games history, and won silver medals in the half-pipe at both the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. He also competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as a skateboarder, becoming one of the two athletes, the other being Jaqueline Mourão, who participated in all of the three consecutive Olympic Games in East Asia between 2018 and 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">France at the 2014 Winter Olympics</span> Sporting event delegation

France competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, from 7 to 23 February 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Britain at the 2014 Winter Olympics</span> Sporting event delegation

Great Britain, represented by the British Olympic Association (BOA), competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, from 7 to 23 February 2014. The British team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom including Northern Ireland, whose athletes may have elected to hold Irish citizenship, allowing them to represent either Great Britain or Ireland. Additionally some British overseas territories competed separately from Britain in Olympic competition. A total of 56 athletes competed in 11 sports making it the biggest contingent that Great Britain had sent to a Winter Olympic Games for twenty-six years.

James Woods is a British freestyle skier. He has won six medals at FIS World Cup and two medals at FIS World Championships

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Virgin Islands at the 2014 Winter Olympics</span> Sporting event delegation

The British Virgin Islands sent a delegation to compete at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia from 7–23 February 2014. This was the second Winter Olympic Games appearance for the territory, after the 1984 Winter Olympics. The team consisted of one athlete, the freestyle skier Peter Crook, who became the territory's second Winter Olympian ever. In the men's halfpipe, he came in 27th place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gus Kenworthy</span> British-American freestyle skier

Augustus Richard Kenworthy is a British-American former freestyle skier, actor, and YouTuber. He has competed in slopestyle, halfpipe, and big air. Kenworthy won the silver medal in men's slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. As of 2019 Kenworthy represents Great Britain. He was cast as Chet Clancy in the ninth season of the horror anthology series American Horror Story: 1984.

Taylor Gold is an American Olympian snowboarder. He competes in the halfpipe.

Kaitlyn Brooke Farrington is an American former professional snowboarder and amateur freestyle snowmobiler who grew up on a cattle ranch near Bellevue, Idaho, and now lives in Whitefish, Montana. She won the gold medal in the women's half-pipe competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Prior to her Olympic debut, she competed in the 2010 European Winter X Games and won the gold medal. On December 8, 2022, Farrington was announced as a backup crew member of the dearMoon project, a lunar spaceflight mission.

Rowan Cheshire is a British freestyle skier, specialising in the halfpipe. Cheshire competed in the 2013 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Voss, Norway, where she finished 17th. She won a bronze medal at the 2013 World Junior Championships in Valmalenco. In January 2014 she became the first British female skier to win a halfpipe competition on the FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup when she took the halfpipe event at a meeting in Calgary. This was the first Freestyle World Cup win for a British female skier since Jilly Curry won an aerials competition in 1992.

Emma Lonsdale is a freestyle skier who competes in the halfpipe. Her Olympics debut was at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, competing for Team GB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirjam Jäger</span> Swiss freestyle skier (born 1982)

Mirjam Jaeger is a Swiss former freestyle skier. Now she concentrates on her modeling and sports broadcaster career.

Janina Kuzma is a New Zealand freestyle skier. She competed at the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships 2013 in Voss. She competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, placing 5th in the women's halfpipe. She is set to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, in same event. She is seven-time New Zealand Big Mountain Champion, two-time Canadian Freeski Champion, two-time World Heli Challenge Champion and second overall in the world for half pipe 2015.

Murray Buchan, nicknamed Muzza, is a freestyle skier who competes in the halfpipe. Buchan's Olympic debut was at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he competed on 18 February 2014 in the halfpipe, finishing in 17th place in the qualification round.

References

  1. ↑ "James Machon". GB Free Ski. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Freestyler James Machon living Olympic dream in Sochi". The Derbyshire times. 12 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "James Machon". Sochi2014.com. Organizing Committee of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi. Archived from the original on 17 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "James Machon". Team GB. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  5. ↑ "Ski halfpipe champion James Machon hopes to be on the podium in Sochi". Olympic.org. 29 November 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  6. ↑ Fidler, Richard (22 January 2014). "Winter Olympics: Sheffield's Woods, Machon and Summerhayes named for Sochi". The Star. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 "Graduate and skiing champ set for Winter Olympics". Leeds Metropolitan University. 30 January 2014. Archived from the original on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  8. ↑ "Sochi hope Machon still inspired by Ennis Olympic gold". Team GB. 4 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  9. ↑ Russell, Sophie (17 February 2014). "Sochi Olympics 2014: Day 11 Preview – Murray Buchan, James Machon and Elise Christie". International Business Times. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  10. ↑ Barretto, Lawrence; Lewis, Aimee (18 February 2014). "Live Reporting". BBC. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.