The Rundown - June 18, 2021

It's Friday, June 18, and that means today we're bringing you the last Rundown before summer OFFICIALLY starts on Monday here in the northern hemisphere. Where we are the sun's shining outside, a fat cat is purring on the rug, a fresh cup of coffee is steaming on the table, and the best of the last week's Freestyle and Freeski content is lined up and ready for your easy consumption. All that's left for you to do is read on.

Sometimes we like to kick things off with some hard-hitting news here at the Rundown before we get into the fun, and today just happens to be one of those days. Ladies' and gents, we're pleased to announce that Canadian halfpipe supercouple Cassie Sharpe and Justin Dorey GOT A PUPPY...

D'awwwww...

OK but for real though, there was some big news this week, as ESPN announced their Espy Awards nominees and Eileen Gu made the shortlist in the category of Best Athlete, Women's Action Sports. To call Gu's 2020/21 season "historic" would be an understatement, as the 17 year-old claimed three medals in her X Games debut in January - gold in slopestyle and halfpipe, bronze in big air - before returning to Colorado a month-and-a-half later for the Aspen 2021 Snowboard and Freeski World Championships, where she matched her X Games results with a two gold and one bronze performance.

No athlete had ever won three medals in their X Games debut, and no freeskier had ever taken three medals at the same FIS World Championships. Gu did both those things in the span of about seven weeks.

Which is to say that you should head over to the ESPN Espy's website and vote for her, now.

Oh, another thing - Victoria's Secret (the lingerie company, yes) is going through something of a rebrand, and they've signed Ms. Gu on as a brand ambassador along with the likes of US soccer star Megan Rapinoe and a diverse group of models and advocates. It has been quite the year for Eileen Gu, to put it mildly.

Ok, news hour is over. Time for some skiing.

The whole SwissSki squad has been buzzing on the socials over the past few days, with 2020/21 season recaps, summer training updates, and general shenanigans all coming down the line fast and furious.

They're calling the season recap clips "Digital Annual Reports" and man, we sure wish our annual reports looked like this much fun...

They didn't make a Digital Annual Report specifically for their aerials season, but that's ok because just a couple of hours ago Noe Roth dropped this video of himself getting pushed off of a cliff into a lake. High replay value on this one...

Speaking of "high replay value," there's something about the Vincent Veile clip that has had us running it on a loop all morning...

It was Vincent's bday yesterday, so pop by his profile and wish him a happy belated if you've got a second.

STILL on the subject of "high replay value" (although, let's be honest, everything we put in the Rundown is pure banger-level material, right?), Diamond Skiing compiled a clip of a few of the best quads ever done. More Swiss content here, as fully three of the four heavies featured are repping the red-and-white-cross...

Lacking a little jib content so far, so here's Tyler Harding going buck on some rails...

And now the obligatory summer pondskim clip, this time courtesy of the one and only Perrine Laffont, as she and the rest of the French moguls team run a party lap on this puddle in Val d'Isere...

Which leads us nicely into the obligatory water ramp section of the Rundown, where we'll start things off with Perrine's teammate Sacha Theocharis. Swip through to watch Sacha drop a whole basketful of corked 7 variations...

Which leads us to Ashley Caldwell and a very, very nice full, double full, splash...

Not everyone's flipping into a flippin' pool though. Tim Sivignon, for instance, pulled off this mindbender at the local trampoline centre...

Meanwhile, reigning men's ski cross crystal globe winner Reece Howden is keeping his line-selection skills sharp on the mountain bike, picking his way through some gnarliness in the mountains of Canada...

Ok, now we welcome you to the Inspiration Station (we just made that name up right now and we promise we will not use it again after today).

Casey Andringa has had a tough time  over the past couple of years, riding the long, rough road of recovery from a series of injuries. Already boasting the best moustache in moguls, Casey also can lay claim to our favourite post of the week as he details just what it means to finally be back doing what he loves with his teammates after so many setbacks...

More positivity as we get towards the end of this week's Rundown, as Margeux Hackett describes the road she went down to become the skier she is today, while asking her fans to comment on their favourite on-snow memories...

We'll finish things off for this week in Big Mood Corner (as with the "Inspiration Station," this is the first and last time you will ever hear of the "Big Mood Corner"): this week's Big Mood is Birk Ruud on a jetski. That's it. That's all you need to know.

Get out there and rev those weekend engines, y'all! Have a good one and we'll see you back here real soon.