But a funny thing happened on the way to the chopper: The International Olympic Committee, to everyone's surprise, added skiercross to the 2010 Winter Games as a full medal sport. My Austrian sponsors, Red Bull and Atomic Skis, especially love the new exposure I give them." This explains his lack of pants.Then came the 2007 launch of the Honda Ski Tour—a well-funded, heavily promoted four-event series billed as "the Loudest Show on Snow." The Ski Tour combines skiercross with terrain-park competitions, surrounds it all with fashion shows and rock concerts, and multi-platforms the bejesus out of its imagery. Now, though, between waiting for weather windows in Alaska, he's found another way to stay in the spotlight and on sponsors' payrolls. Squaw Valley was hosting the final stop of the 2007 Ski Tour, and Rahlves was enduring a made-for-TV costume change.


When pushed to name players, the 29-year-old asks the supporters who they think he means before appearing to agree that Lamine Kone, Jeremain Lens and Whabi Kazri are not trying as they want to leave the club. “Of course I’m bothered, I don’t want to be s***…There are too many people at the club who don’t give a f***. ” Kone is the first name put to him, to which the Republic of Ireland international responds “right, there’s one”, before replying “next one” when Lens and Khazri are mentioned.
ONE APRÈS-SKI GOLDEN HOUR LAST MARCH, Daron Rahlves, three-time Olympian and retired U. Ski Team star, was standing in the middle of Squaw Valley's Le Chamois bar in his underwear. An X Games favorite heavily influenced by motocross, skiercross sends four to six skiers at a time down a swerving, jump-studded, wildly ramped Alice's rabbit hole of a course.
This was not what Rahlves expected when he retired from World Cup racing following the 2006 season.
With 28 podium finishes, 12 wins, three world championship medals, and a reputation as America's best downhiller, Rahlves, 34, planned to leave racing behind and try big-mountain freeskiing—those helicopter adventures to the steeps of Alaska that supply each year's new crop of ski porn.
But Rahlves, it should be noted, was sober, and he had stripped only as a favor for a camera crew from ABC Sports, which needed footage to promote his latest high-speed, adrenaline-fueled pursuit, skiercross.
Elbows fly, and if you cut off your enemy and send him careering off the course—hey, bonus.
"It's nice not dealing so much with edges," he explains of the switch from racecourses to powder. Ski Team members have morphed into great freeskiers.
"Nice not having to try to hang on to the ice all the time." It's a transition no major racer has nailed, though. Big-mountain heroes Jeremy Nobis and Wendy Fisher each raced at one time for the Stars and Stripes. None enjoyed Rahlves's success or longevity on the World Cup circuit.
In the video, Gibson in criticised for not caring himself after going out drinking following his side’s 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Celtic in a preseason friendly at the Stadium of Light.