Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Snowboarder JJ Thomas forged some lasting memories of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
The last man to qualify for the U.S. team that year, the Golden, Colorado, native won a bronze medal in the halfpipe in a stunning American sweep of the podium. Ross Powers took gold and 19-year-old Danny Kass won silver, marking the first time Team USA went 1-2-3 in any Winter Games event since men's figure skating in 1956.
And U.S. winter sports athletes haven't duplicated the feat since that magical year at Park City Mountain Resort.
"It was just a perfect sunny day, a perfect venue. Little did we know at the time that that would probably go down to be the best halfpipe venue to happen in snowboarding history. To date, there hasn't been another that good that I've been to or heard about," Thomas told the Deseret News in an interview.
With 20,000 wildly excited spectators at the base of the mountain, the atmosphere rivaled a college or pro football game.
"It just had the energy I haven't felt at an event since," he said.
Thomas and Powers joked about a possible sweep while riding the lift to the top of the halfpipe. "That would be crazy," Thomas told reporters after the 2002 event. "But it happened."
Though he didn't recall that conversation specifically, Thomas remembered another chat he had with Powers the night before the contest. Thomas asked Powers about his plan for the competition. Powers wanted to go as big as he possibly could, meaning launching themselves above the rim of the halfpipe to a dizzying height. Thomas agreed, and they fist bumped.
"And that's what happened," Thomas said. "The next day he went out and did the biggest method (a classic trick where the rider grabs the heel edge of the board with their front hand and then pulls the board toward their back while soaring almost parallel to the snow), that had been done at the time and won the gold, so it was pretty cool."
Snowboarding debuted in the 1998 Nagano Olympics but really remained an obscure sport until four years later in Salt Lake City.
Thomas said that day was "really a coming out party for freestyle halfpipe snowboarding. I felt like that was the day the whole world saw it."
Making a new Warren Miller film
Now living in Encinitas, California, Thomas continues to ride at Park City a few times a year. He returned there last winter to shoot a segment for the new Warren Miller film "75″ with two of his closest friends — 24-year-old Toby Miller and the most decorated snowboarder in the sports' history, Shaun White. Thomas, who turned to coaching after retiring from competition, coached both in the halfpipe.
In the movie, White, Thomas and Miller agree at the top of the hill to keep the last run of the day "mellow." What ensues among the living legend, the coach and the young buck is a race to the bottom hauling down the steeps, sliding over rails in terrain parks and doing tricks in the halfpipe.
The March shoot came during a big snowstorm that left the trio a fresh blanket of powder to play in.
"That was the best conditions I ever had at Park City. That was a dream," he said, recalling chatter about an "atmospheric river" passing through the state. "We were just in it. It was a thing of beauty."
After coaching the U.S. Snowboard Team in various capacities and privately for a decade, Thomas now is a "powder hound" who chases fresh snow and makes films for social media. He also works as a team manager for White's namesake brand, Whitespace. Thomas and Miller each have more than 205,000 Instagram followers.
The gig gives him plenty of time to ride with White and Miller, who just moved to Logan.
Future Olympian?
Much younger than the 38-year-old White and the 43-year-old Thomas, Miller met both when he was around 12. He's been riding and training with them ever since, especially the past five years. Though mostly focused on halfpipe contests early in his career, they opened his eyes to other aspects of the sport, including backcountry riding.
"I've been doing it for almost my entire life. I've had a snowboard career for almost a decade now. I feel like I'm just getting started, honestly. There's so much more I want to achieve in this sport — the competition, the backcountry, everything," Miller told the Deseret News.
Miller just missed making the 2022 Olympic team, but traveled with White and Thomas to Beijing where he caught a glimpse of what it's like to be on the world's biggest stage. White, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, finished just off the podium in what was his fifth and final Winter Games.
"It was really cool to see what the Olympics actually are. Athletes have this idea of the Olympics in their head when they grow up, this pinnacle, pinnacle thing. It is incredible. It is the world stage. It's prestigious," he said. "But something that really stood out to me outside of the Opening Ceremony, outside all of it, when you're at the top of the halfpipe, it's all the same people. It's just another halfpipe event. It was really cool for me to see because it made everything seem so much more attainable. It made it less of a mythical creature."
