Ski cross’s new-found status as an Olympic event has seen ambitious nations up their game in the chase for medals at the highest levels. That means the bar has raised dramatically. “It’s tough right now,” says Daron Rahlves. “There’s not just one or two guys who are going to be difficult to compete against; all the national teams have really stepped up.

The going could be even tougher for Rahlves, who retired from ski racing in 2006 as the US’s most successful skier, and now fits his ski training around his business commitments and doting on his 17-month-old twins.

“I can’t get my fill of skiing right now. I could ski all day long and still want to keep skiing,” he says. “But it’s tough now, I have two or three hours a day maybe four days a week where I can go out and ski now. Just with the family and other responsibilities It’s not just me and my wife anymore, so I have to appreciate the time I have to ski.”

A crucial part of his X Games strategy is knowing his opponents’ tactics: “There’s a lot of new faces that I don’t know and I have to study pretty quick and figure out what these guys do in the start, how they can turn and how they jump and if you’re behind one of them you need to know who you’re behind so you can attack in the right place. Some guys are better in the turn, some guys are better in the air so you need to capitalise on their weakness.”

So who does he reckon will be his toughest opponents? “It looks like the Austrians are pretty much running the show. Switzerland look strong, plus the Canadians have a really good team, even France and Sweden have strong teams.”

The Europeans won’t have it all their own way, he says, tipping young John Teller, from Mammoth, California, to be in the final reckoning. But Rahlves points to the recent performances of fellow US ski cross racer, and perennial X Games rival, Casey Puckett. “Casey, who’s usually winning, is qualifying mid-pack. He was 10th in the last World Cup. He’s a good benchmark for me and I’ve been looking to see what he’s been doing and he’s struggling, so I’ve got to ramp it up a bit.”

And ramp it up is exactly what he’s doing. “It’s going to be a fight for sure but the tougher it is, the better it is. It makes it more challenging, and I like that.”

“I’ve always been really weak on my starts,” he confesses – and working at his race technique. It’s in this last area that the Olympian believes he may have made a crucial breakthrough. Rahlves has been hitting the gym hard since October last year and practising his starts –

Learning his experience as a motocross rider, he’s developed a way to give himself an extra turn of speed coming out of jumps: scrubbing.

“In motocross they don’t go straight off a jump anymore, they lay their bike over and ‘scrub’ it (the Bubba Scrub). They take away the energy going up and try to give it a more forward trajectory.

“In skiing you lay your skis up on edge and hook them out to the side a little bit. It’s pretty dicey and if you get it wrong you can have a bad outcome but if you do it at the right moment the payoff is big.”

All of which means that Rahlves is relishing the tough competition he’ll face at the X Games and the new lease of life his skiing is enjoying since retiring from Alpine ski racing in 2006. “I think it’s one of the most exciting things on skis. Sure downhill ski racing was the ultimate. Nothing could touch Kitzbuhel for shear risk and the challenge of that hill but ski cross is a great alternative and it’s kept me competitive and gives me that fix I need.”

Rahlves will be getting his first fix of the year in the World Cup event at Lake Placid this weekend before heading to Aspen. “I’m excited for X Games for sure. It’s the highlight of the season every year, not just for our event it’s like a circus going on there. It’s so entertaining not just as an athlete but as a spectator. It’s the action sports world on snow.

“I had more recognition last year from winning the X Games when I came home than I ever did from any World Cup year. Even after winning Kitzbuhel.”

After his title defence at the X Games, Rahlves intends to bring a selection of leading racers to the new ski cross course he’s building at his regular training base, the Sugar Bowl ski resort in California. They’ll then take part in a unique cross-country ski cross race. “We’re going to have six-man heats racing top to bottom going through narrow shoots, gulleys natural terrain as is.

“It’s not going to be prepped or nothing. It’s going to be as it is like skied out through the season. It’s head to head racing like ski cross but how Mother Nature offered it not like you’d build it with a Cat or a machine. It’s called the Silver Belt Banzai. It’s going to be cool.”

For more information about Daron, including footage of his Silver Belt Banzai run, visit daronrahlves.com and you can follow X Games 13 here at the Red Bulletin next week.