Westbound Boarder

The Winter X Games is one of the largest annual contests of the year and is notorious for pushing its competitors to the next level and raising industry standards year after year.  This year was no exception, especially since the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver B.C. are right around the corner. The X Games are a great opportunity for women snowboarders to showcase their skills, while raising the bar for womens snowboarding. There were three female snowboard competitions during this past weekend’s event.  Snowboard Cross, a treacherous, windy, and super fast, five person race, the Slopestyle park comp, and of course the 22′ Super Pipe. The super pipe contest was awesome this year, and the U.S. girls ripped it up. In fact, the girls who podiumed where all on the U.S. woman’s Olympic team. First place went to Gretchen Bleiler, a Colorado local, second was Kelly Clark, and third was Hannah Teeter. Kelly was the only girl to do a 900 and absolutely popped the highest out of the pipe, but it was Gretchen Bleiler who had her trademarked crippler 720, which is sort of like a rodeo, but more inverted and stylish. Hannah Teeter had a great bag of tricks with perfect 540’s as well. Unfortunately, one of my favorite riders, Elena Hight, didn’t medal, though she did kill the Dew tour stop at Snow Basin (Ogden, UT), getting first in the woman’s Super Pipe.

Slopestyle was impressive this year, with a few different riders than the Super Pipe and plenty of tricks to go with them. The slopestyle course was made up of a rail garden and three giant jumps, stretching from 50′ to almost 70′ to finish off the run. Jenny Jones from Great Brittan won the Gold, Jamie Anderson won the Silver, and Janna Meyen-Weatherby won Bronze. Janna has been tearing up contests for years - she’s 32 years old and making it look effortless over the jumps. She was also the only girl to stick a 900. Jamie Anderson was great on the rails, doing a 360 nose bonk, and she killed it on the jumps with clean 7’s all around. It was Jones, though, with her perfect run with big air and style over all of the jumps pulling the consecutive 540’s with no sketchy landings, who conquered. Also have to give credit to Eero Ettala for the mens, stomping the best run I’ve ever seen in a contest. His first slopestyle run consisted of the double cork 1080, double backside rodeo 900, and then a double back flip. I knew this guy was good, but wow, taking a safe gold with no one even coming close to his score.

Shaun White has finally broken the curse that historically consumed the Winter X games defending champion. That’s right, history was made as the 2009 Winter X Thirteen came to an end last night in Aspen, CO. Shawn White is the first competitor to ever win a back to back gold medal - in any of the X Games competitions. You think that’s cool? White now also holds the most Winter X gold medals - a record nine, to be exact.

Despite the contrary expectation, it didn’t come easy for White last night. He went into his third and final run in 7^th place and really needed to stomp his last run to even have a chance for the podium.  As White admits, it’s the last run pressure that does it for him, so it’s no surprise that his final run was of gold standard.

White’s winning run included quite the combo - soaring more than 20 feet out of the pipe, he pulled his signature backside rodeo, a backside 900, a frontside 1080, followed by a backside 1080 (a popular combo of the evening), a frontside 900, then sealed the deal with a McTwist.  This run earned him a score of 91.66, just barely enough to bump him past Kevin Pearce’s 90.66. As White was recently defeated by Pearce earlier this month at the Burton European Open in Laax, Switzerland, last night was quite the redemption. Even though they are competitors, Pearce gave White a pound…

No matter who you were cheering for, White deserves some major props as he made Winter X history! Earning back to back gold medals in the Superpipe and achieving the unprecedented 8^th (White also took Gold in Slopestyle on Saturday night) and 9^th gold medals in the 2009 Winter X games.

What exactly drives Shawn White to go so big? From the Flying Tomato himself…”The Amazing Crowd!