Missoula Native Wows With Incredible Jump at the Olympics
Have you been watching the world's greatest athletes on display with the Winter Olympics? I haven't really found the time to sit down and watch much of it, but I did catch just a few minutes of a skiing event over the weekend. And dang, they really hook you in with the drama of the competitor's backstory to where it's tough to turn away. I had no idea who any of the skiers were but I happened to turn it on when the last person to compete was about to start. After the announcers gave the details of her story and sacrifice to the sport, I was invested and rooting for her to bring home the gold!
We received a fun message on our station's mobile app today
It's always fun to see the Montanans that are representing the USA at the Olympics. It's great to see the talent in the state and it also makes it more fun to watch when you have that added reason to root them on. A listener sent in a text this morning saying we should give a little love to a native Missoulian that was doing big things in Beijing:
Hey, you guy's should announce this on the radio, two-time Olympian Darian Stevens from Missoula qualified in eighth place as the lone American to make the final
Sure enough, Darian was born in Missoula and will compete in the finals of the Women's Big Air event. Check out the amazing picture below. Wow, what a great shot!
It's so impressive to see how easy these Olympians can make something like this look
Watch Darian in action with the video below. Are you kidding me? How awesome is that jump? I can't even begin to imagine how many wipeouts you would have to go through to try and master something like that.
Want to see an even more impressive video? Before the jump, she pretty much goes down the hill backward before she makes the jump. You can see it in this NBC Sports video here - just skip to the 1:50 mark of the video.
Good luck, Darian
The final two runs of the Women's Big Air event at the Olympics will air tonight. You can learn how to follow along and see how Darian finishes at Olympics.com.