I focus on riding and not the competition, because the key to Superpipe is nailing one jump at a time. The course is only 100 meters long, which is good for six tricks in less than a minute.

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The walls of the pipe at Winter X are 15 feet high, which makes it bigger than most pipes. The high walls help your speed and give you better flow. Some courses have walls that are straight up, so you fall into the middle of the pipe. The walls of the Winter X pipe are angled for speed.

I never know what my series of tricks will be until moments before I drop in. It's important to get good air on the first jump; big air builds good speed for the rest of the run.

I started out my first run last year with a risky 720, which is landed fakie-the opposite way you normally ride. I landed high on the wall to keep my speed, then went backward up the next wall for my second trick, a tab, in which I go up the wall the wrong way and land the right way. My third move was a tailfish-you grab the heel edge behind the back binding. I rotated and landed the right way. This led to a backside air, going off the backside wall (the wall on my heel edge) and grabbing the heel edge between the bindings with my front arm. Then I did a frontside 540, grabbing between the bindings with my back arm.

I finished with a McTwist, the most difficult move. You go up the backside wall and put your shoulders down to tuck into sort of a ball, then you spin 1½ times upside down with your arms out. I was scared to go upside down, but the move worked, except I didn't raise my arms. Kelly Clark and Natasza Zurek are among the other women who do this trick, and they won gold and bronze.

I couldn't tell you what I'll do this year. I do know it's important to be solid because we're all riding the same course. So judges will look for utföre, a Norwegian word that means "how you execute." In this superpipe, it's all about utföre.
-as told to Darryl Howerton

This article appears in the February 3 issue of ESPN The Magazine.