Schlopys parents are the three-time downhill World Cup champion Holly Flanders and the NFL - Football Player Todd Schlopy , who brought her son at the age of two years for skiing. At the age of 14, some of Schlopy's jumps were shown in a film by Teton Gravity Research , which produces ski and snowboard films, among other things. The American made his sporting breakthrough in winter 2009/2010. As an amateur, he won a $ 12,000 competition at the Dumont Cup at the end of March 2010 , beating several professional slopestylers. Previously, he had also placed in the top ten in other races with professional participation. After these good results, the sports and clothing company Oakley Schlopy offered a place in the Oakley Ski Team it sponsored in the summer of 2010 , which the 18-year-old accepted and thus became a professional.
In his first winter as a professional, Schlopy achieved his greatest successes to date: At the Winter X Games 2011 , he won the gold medal in Big Air at the end of January 2011 , including a Double Cork 16 , a jump he had never done before graduated from a competition. A week later, on February 3, Schlopy won the Slopestyle competition as part of the Freestyle Skiing World Championship at the Deer Valley Resort (near his hometown of Park City). He was the first world champion in this discipline before his compatriot Sam Carlson and the Australian Russell Henshaw . After the race, he said that doing so well in his hometown was the best he could imagine.
↑ John Symms and Megan Michelson: Alex Schlopy wins Big Air on sports.espn.go.com. Released on January 30, 2011. With a video of Schlopy's competition jumps.