Last winter, Devin Logan was the top-ranked woman overall on the slope and pipe circuit. It was the second year in a row the 19-year-old took home the Association of Freeskiing Professionals' overall championship title, which was renamed the Sarah Burke Trophy this year, awarded to the skier with the best results in both slopestyle and superpipe from the entire season. The current Park City, Utah, resident grew up chasing her brothers Chris and Sean around the Vermont hills and eventually followed their lead to pro status. ESPN Freeskiing recently caught up with Logan to get her thoughts on women-specific jumps, Olympic crossover judging, and family powder days.
You're one of the few double threats in women's freeskiing. Do you treat each discipline separately or do you take successes from one and apply it to the other?
This year, going into each competition I'd definitely pay more attention to slopestyle because halfpipe is always the same -- always 22-foot walls. I kind of had my pipe run dialed in the beginning of the year and just wanted to work a few more tricks into it. When it comes down to it, halfpipe is the same as slopestyle in my mind -- there's just a little more vert. It's the same trick in the end, you just throw it different one way.
There's been some speculation about creating women's jumps. What's your take?
I grew up skiing with my brothers, so they never let me hit the (small) side of the jump. It was always like, "Yeah, we can do it. Your turn, you're going." Like I had no option. That's always been my mindset growing up -- if boys can do it, I can do it. Having women's size jumps would be nice on those days when you get bad weather, when the snow's really sticky, when it's putting you in risk or danger. Besides that, girls can do all their jumps on man-size jumps. I've been doing it all year, you've been seeing Kaya Turski do it all year. We all can hit the guys' sized jumps; we've seen it for years. It doesn't make sense in my eyes.
What are your thoughts on FIS's idea of having crossover judges in ski and snowboarding for "efficiency and economy."
The Olympics in our eyes is the highest, most honored step we can take and for FIS to put out this word saying, "We're going to have joint judges," for me, it kind of feels like they're not taking us seriously. Would you have ski jumping judges for cross-country? They're two completely different sports. But with all the ranting you see over the internet, I don't think it will come true. I think there's going to be a lot of people against it. If it does happen it's going to be very interesting.
Is there some sibling rivalry going on between you and your brothers or is it straight camaraderie?
When we all get together, it's just fun. Powder day or park there's no rivalry just because I know they're way better than me. I love skiing with my brothers. Since day one they've been pushing me, sometimes above and beyond where I'm just a little bit uncomfortable, but they know everything is fine. We each push ourselves and have a blast doing it.
A lot of pros are putting off college. Any plans on enrolling?
Last year, being still in high school and traveling as much as I did, I told my parents, "College is always there, skiing is here now. I can't do it forever, let me just do this." If I want to go to college later on, I'll do it, and my parents have always been really supportive. Since getting on the U.S. Freeskiing team, one of the benefits is that we get a free education from Westminster College in Salt Lake City. When I learned about this, I got my plans in order and figured I can squeeze in class here and there.
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