Photos by Lonnie Kauk and John Centi

As a spectator of the x games you may be in Aspen watching the event live or you may be watching it on ESPN live through the tube. What you don’t always get to see is the behind the scenes coverage from the riders view. Lonnie Kauk is a pro snowboarder that competed in the x games slopestyle event and he is also one of the Snowboard Revolution Crew members. Lonnie brings you inside the athlete lounge with all the competitors during the slopestyle finals and also shows you a look in what goes on behind the scenes before the riders drop in.

The riders prepare for there runs in many different ways, some are very mellow and seem like its another day in the park with their friends. Other riders get very focused and remain quite while prepping for their runs.

In the riders tent each competitor sits their and watches the other riders runs through the live X Games feed that you see at home. The first thing I noticed was how stoked all the riders were when the other competitors stomped a solid run.

The next thing observed was the focus that the cameras give Shaun White and it was kind of a trip to see his reaction to all of the attention. During the Shaun White interviews that you see on tv, Shaun removes himself from the room and goes to focus on the current situation at hand which is his next run. He seems like the rest of us who dont necessarily like to see ourselves in old home videos. Shaun is human.

Travis Rice who did not qualify for finals was watching the event in the tent and gave all the riders a ton of encouragement as they would walk out for there runs.

Heiki Sorsa was pretty intense to see because based on the his mellow persona before his run you would never think he would attempt something as gnarly as he did. During his run he took one foot out of his binding and did a one foot 360. That is very crazy and you would think that he would have a crazy focus just thinking about the consequence, he carried himself much different and seemed like he was just having a good time. When Heikki stomped the one footed three sixty all of the riders were cheering so much.

Andreas Wiig who won the event about to drop in to the course.

Chas Guldemond The Knight focusing on his run.

Lonnie Kauk (cowk) and Chas Guldemond

Mason Aguirre preparing for his run, he was pretty chill.

This camera remained on Shaun White the entire time.

Shaun heading out for his run

X Games Big Air Gold Medalist Torstein Horgmo was chilling with the rest of the riders.

Torstein sledding down to the riders tent, from the Slopstyle drop in ramp.

Jamie Anderson was in the tent with the guys.

Jussi Oksanen always in good Spirits

Tim Humphreys is a powerful rider. This kid is going to blow up.

Kevin Pearce from FRENDS was stoked. Kevin, who stomped his way to second place was very mellow and you could tell he was truly focused on his next moves. Jussi seemed to be having a good time just being there.

Lonnie Giving Mikkel Bang encouragement before his run.

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