Snowmobile Freestyle favorite Daniel Bodin wrecked into the backside of the huge downhill gap jump first thing this morning during a practice session. Defending Silver Medalist Aleksander Nordgaard cased the landing on the same jump—smashing his face and throat into the handlebars of his sled in the process—and alternate Paul Thacker had problems there, too, impacting with enough force to record 31 G's on a G-force gauge mounted on his sled.

Tim Mutrie

Nordgaard dropped out with a bruised larynx.

Turns out, the ramp had been moved back some 20 feet overnight and not all the riders—Bodin, Nordgaard and Thacker, for example—knew about it. "They moved the f**king ramp like 20 feet further back,"said Nordgaard, "and they didn't tell everybody about that... and that's a huge problem." Nordgaard resumed practicing, while Bodin—who suffered damage to his sled and cuts on his face—returned to his trailer.

"Me and Daniel crashed really hard there. I got my throat right into the handlebars. As you can hear, I can't talk," Nordgaard said. "I also kind of messed up my wrist yesterday, so I can't take the impact on the landings... So it's a hard time right now. I don't know what to do."

Nordgaard crashed again later in the practice session—a gnarly looking wreck over the front of his bars once again. "I was going to do a one-hand seat grab. But I guess I'm not feeling OK after all these crashes. I'm not fully concentrated. So I missed a grab and just slammed right into the bars again. So now my chin is cut up. Aahhhhh, I don't mean to complain but that's how it is," he said.

I asked Nordgaard if had spoken with Bodin since his backside smack crash off the downhill gap jump. "No. I guess no one has. I hope he's OK."
"But I saw him crash," he added. "I was sitting here and saying to the X Games people that they didn't tell us they moved the ramp. And they were saying, 'Oh we did.' And then I saw Daniel go boom, into the wall. I said, 'No you didn't, looking what's happening.' I don't want to complain. I don't want to blame other people, but this time it's not my fault. [pause] I'm sick of blaming myself for crashing."

Regarding the re-positioning of the take-off ramp, Joe Duncan, event official, told EXPN.com: "Some of the guys didn't get the information. We talked about it at the driver's meeting, but they didn't understand that it was happening last night. You know, our fault—we should've told each rider individually. But they did all get a chance to go out and look at the course before the practice started."