November 9, 2019
Sam Kuch bursts out of nowhere to become the main attraction of MSP’s 2019 film, Return to Send’er
Sam Kuch’s mom took down Chuck Norris in a quad-crippling squat challenge. The story’s a shred of Nelson, British Columbia lore: Sheila, a ripped karate blackbelt, outlasting ‘Merica’s monument of manliness in an exercise so intense it caused Chuck to faint. Of course, as these stories go, what’s recounted today has morphed substantially from actual events. Sometimes fiction is more fun. But there is truth in Sam’s mom, a former competitive gymnast, pulling off a “crouching horse stance” for a ridiculous one and a half hours, and this power and resilience might just be indicative of something else: Her son has been genetically gifted with “stompy” legs. Because there’s something special in those lower limbs that allows Sam Kuch, pro skier, to do the unimaginable.
Any skier who surfed social media this past season was subject to the Sam Kuch onslaught; an unprecedented spin here, a massive natty rodeo 7 there, an improbable line or cliff flashed here, there and everywhere. He filmed with Matchstick Productions all season and threw down with Blank Collective, too, generating a seemingly endless stream of praise from legends like Mark Abma and Mike Douglas, guys who thought they’d seen it all. That is, until this 21-year-old phenom came along. Of course, the exploits, praise and meteoric rise all beg the question, ‘Who the hell is Sam Kuch?’
Posted from Freeskier
