Alex Hall Takes Second in Tom Wallisch’s Steel City Showdown 2022

Hall is also no stranger to technical rail tricks and clinched the win in the previous iteration of Tom Wallisch’s Steel City Showdown in 2020. After the event took a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hall and his peers were fired up for another rail jam.

Hall coasted through the qualifiers and semifinals in the invite-only contest. In Saturday’s final, the ten highest-ranked men competed in a live scoring format for cash prizes. Plus, the judges handed out awards for the best trick, creativity, biggest send, and more.

As the final unfolded under the lights on Saturday night, each rider received eight hits at the course. The best three scores counted as the final score for each rider. Setting the tone for the night, Hall opened with a switch 270 on the diving board rail to transfer into a pretzel 450 the down-flat-down rail for 94.00 points.

On his next run, Hall followed up with a stylish 450 on tail press pretzel on the middle rail feature for 83.00 points and an early lead. As American Mac Forehand took over the top spot, Hall fired back by getting creative with a wallie 270 on front-swap pretzel 270 off on the middle feature for 88.7 points to reclaim the lead.

But when Forehand returned to reclaim the top spot, Hall found himself catching up. He put down more technical moves like a 450 on swap to pretzel but lost crucial points for early dismounts. With Forehand’s lead expanding, even Hall’s technical 450 on backswap 270 out the middle rail for 92.00 points could not shake up the final standings. When all was said and done, Hall took home the trophy for second place on the strength of 274.7 points, only 0.9 points behind Forehand in first.

Regarded as one of the pacesetters of Freeski progression, Hall is the current Olympic gold medalist in Men’s Ski Slopestyle. Hall also holds 9 X Games medals (5 Gold, 1 Silver, 3 Bronze) and has achieved the rare feat of earning X Games gold medals in four disciplines: Big Air, Slopestyle, Knuckle Huck, and the Real Ski video competition.