Earlier this year, one of the most intense and adrenaline-fueled events in sports was held in Aspen, Colorado. The Winter X Games are fast-paced, exciting, and wildly entertaining. For those of you who don’t know, the X Games is an extreme sports competition similar to the Olympics. The events held this year were:
Skiing
- Men’s and Women’s Big Air
- Men’s and Women’s Slopestyle
- Men’s and Women’s SuperPipe
Snowboarding
- Men’s and Women’s Big Air
- Men’s and Women’s Slopestyle
- Men’s and Women’s SuperPipe
Snowmobile/Snowbike
- Snowmobile Freestyle
- Snow BikeCross
- Snow Bike Best Trick
The first event of the weekend was the Women’s Ski SuperPipe. In this event, the skiers get three runs to do the most impressive tricks on a massive snow halfpipe. The highest-scoring run for each competitor is their final score. This year, Canadian skier Cassie Sharpe took home gold. She scored an incredible 94.00 with her mind-numbingly awesome third run. Kelly Sildaru came in a close second with a first run score of 92.23. In the equally exciting men’s Ski SuperPipe final, American skier Alex Ferreira took home gold with a ridiculous 92.66 score run!
The next event up was the Women’s Ski Slopestyle. Slopestyle is an event where skiers go down a course that includes obstacles like rails and jumps. The winner of this event was Kelly Sildaru, with the most impressive score of the games, a 99.00! In the men’s division, American skier Alex Hall took home gold with a nice 95.66.
Snowmobile freestyle, one of the most dangerous events in the X-Games, did not disappoint. The runs were all spectacular, but Swedish rider Daniel Bodin narrowly secured gold with a 91.66. There were a few crashes in this event, but luckily no one was hurt. This event has faced controversy in the past due to how dangerous it is, and it almost wasn’t included in this years X-Games. Officials eventually agreed to let it be, but with added safety precautions.
Next up is Women’s Ski Big Air. In this scary event, skiers fly down a long steep slope, into a massive jump. Whoever pulls off the most challenging trick and lands it right takes home gold. This time around, it was Swiss skier Mathilde Grimaud with a score of 83.00. For men’s Ski Big Air, Birk Rudd from Norway snagged gold with a score of 89.00.
Finally, we are onto the snowboard events. In Snowboard slopestyle, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Mark McMorris took home gold (each for their respective divisions). In Super Pipe, Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim won gold with a score of 84.00. In a later interview, she said that it wasn’t the run she had wanted, but she would work harder next time. She has seven X-Games medals, and five of those are gold! For men’s, Scotty James won gold, with a nice 94.00. In snowboarding Big Air, Takeru Otsuka took home gold for Men’s, and Laurie Blouin for Women’s.
by Jace Anderson ’23