Every year they go bigger and faster. And this year’s 10th Winter X Games, Friday through Jan. 31 at Aspen’s Buttermilk ski area, again will showcase the athletic and brazen progression of the world’s best athletes on snow. On stage: audacious airs and technical tricks with the amps cranked to 11. Pushing the envelope? These athletes pioneer a new path every year. With Olympic opulence on the heels of this year’s X, watch for the most explosive, unpredictable Winter X ever. This year, the X is gunning to beat O.
Here’s who to watch and what to expect at the snowy circus:
WOMEN’S SLOPESTYLE | snowboard
The board-carving fellas battle for slopestyle and superpipe gold, with the winners finishing a point above the rest. Women’s slopestyle is a two-gal game, featuring snowboarding veterans Tara Dakides (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.) and Janna Meyen (Bend, Ore.) The ladies battle for gold in the superpipe, but Dakides and Meyen own slopestyle. Last year Dakides flew off course in qualifying and took out a cameraman, leaving her with a career-first sideline for the finals and delivering Meyen an easy win. Dakides will be vying to make up for lost ground this year. But this could be the year for mavericks. Natasza Zurek (Vancouver, British Columbia) and Cheryl Maas of the Netherlands are on fire this season.
Finals: 11:30 a.m., Saturday
MEN’S SNOWBOARD X
All eyes will be on snowboard X this year, thanks to its first turn in the Olympics the next month. The burliest race on snow pits six top-speed boarders elbowing one another over hill and dale. California legend Shaun Palmer, typically a top tier SBXer, watched his free ride to the boardercross debut in the Olympics evaporate last week when he blew his Achilles tendon during a qualifier in Italy. This gladiator-style race batters athletes and the showdown in Aspen – with racers hailing from six countries – likely will mirror the “Big O” show in Turin a month later. Frenchman Xavier de le Rue edged out Maine’s Seth Wescott – a five-time Winter X medalist – for gold in last year’s race, which 86’d Aspen local Chris Klug with a broken clavicle and came close to shattering Vermont’s Ben Jacobellis. If they get their hole-shot – boarder speak for that necessary lead position out of the gate – watch California’s Nate Holland or Wescott to take gold in Aspen and Turin.
Finals: noon, Saturday
WOMEN’S SNOWBOARD X
There’s a reason Lindsey Jacobellis is going to Italy. The Stratton, Vt., boarder is wicked fast and intensely focused. Minutes before her semifinal run in last year’s snowboarder X, Jacobellis watched her brother Ben go down hard and get carted off the course on a stretcher. Then she flung herself down the same course with inspirational determination and cleaned up. An hour later, she inched past Vancouver’s Erin Simmons a few yards before the finish to claim a golden hat trick in women’s X. It was, many agreed, the most dramatic finish at last year’s X Games. This year, snowboarding’s most eloquent speakeris bringing a bevy of World Cup wins and a ticket to her first Olympics. With an eye trained on gold in Aspen and Turin, she might be unbeatable.
Finals: noon, Saturday
MEN’S SLOPESTYLE | snowboard
We’ve watched Shaun White (Carlsbad, Calif.) grow from an awkward pre-teen nicknamed “Future Boy” to a well-spoken hero who turns 20 this year. And during his maturation, one thing remained constant: his prowess on a plank. Be it wheeled or edged, White is one of the most graceful, flawless athletes to carve a board. If White is an artist, slopestyle is his canvas. This year is shaping up to be a repeat of White’s breakout 2003, when he won everything he entered. He’s going to Italy, thanks to a sweep of the qualifying events. But before the long flight, he will spend some time airborne in Aspen. Equally adept shredders Danny Kass (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.), Travis Rice (Jackson, Wyo.) and Breck’s Todd Richards will be chasing The Tomato, looking to grab a sliver of the Shaun Spotlight. Any bobble by White, and his pursuers will move for checkmate. Don’t miss Denver’s coolest rider, Marc Frank Montoya. He’s hungry, and if he brings his “A” game to X, everyone is on notice.
Finals: 2:30 p.m., Saturday
MOTO X | best trick
The Metal Mulisha, the California band of wrist-twisting, motor-mounted acrobats, laid waste to the competition last year, revealing themselves as the most powerful posse in freestyle motocross. Mulisha maestro Brian Deegan’s flawless no-footed backflip earned him gold – his 10th X Games medal – while Mulisha partner Jeff “Ox” Kargola’s no-footed backflip to one-handed landing earned silver. In practice before his final trick off the 75-foot kicker, Deegan was messing around with a mysterious no-footed flip with a kick. Deegan shattered both wrists and his femur in 2004 after bailing from his ride 40 feet above the icy deck in what is probably the most breath-stealing wreck in Winter X history. He is known for pushing the boundaries of what is possible on snow-tired motorcycles, so watch closely. He always steps up.
Finals: Part 1 – 7 p.m., Saturday
Part 2 – 8:15 p.m., Sunday
WOMEN’S SUPERPIPE | snowboard
Gretchen Bleiler owned last year. And Aspen’s sweetest ripper is on fire this season, with a pass to the Big Show in Turin and a gold streak to match her mane. Bleiler will be the safe money for gold in the pipe, but Doriane Vidal of France and the Turin-ticketed team of Vermont riders Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter will be aiming to dethrone the Aspen pipe queen. The four wrestled for the gold last year, stomping mega tricks with astronomical air. Vidal just about clinched a win last year with the only Haakon flip, a 720-degree twisting flip. Watch for that one again. It’s an A-bomb.
Finals: 7:30 p.m., Saturday
WOMEN’S SKIER X
Watching the skiers crumbling down the skiercross course, it dawns on everyone that this is more war than game. You win a game. You survive a war. This made-for-television spectacle features the most spectacular racing on snow. And the most explosive crashes. Last year’s winner of women’s skier X, Swede Sanna Tidstrand, holds the Swedish record as the fastest women on skis, which, at 138 mph, is more than her weight in miles per hour. (Think about that for a second.) The 20-year-old is returning to defend her title in what is often the bloodiest contest at X. Keep an eye on Aspen’s Asia Jenkins and Meeker’s Suzan Dole . Those freeskiing speedsters have the skills to jostle their way to gold.
Finals: noon, Sunday
MEN’S SKIER X
Former U.S. Ski Teamers Reggie and Zach Crist are chieftains of the roller-derby on skis known as skiercross. The Sun Valley, Idaho, brothers took gold and silver last year and are back this year looking to make X history as the fastest brood on snow. Aspen’s Casey Puckett, fresh from a recent anointment as King of the Mountain in the Jeep series, is looking for vengeance on his home turf and Vail’s Eric Archer – the oldest and likely most robust competitor at X – will be aiming to earn one for the geezers in the most internationally cosmopolitan race at X. Watch the elbows fly in this one. These guys wrangle at mach speed. Winners tend to sneak under competitors who take too much air on the course’s giant hip jump in a technique that steals spectators’ breath.
Finals: noon, Sunday
MEN’S SLOPESTYLE | ski
It was the grind that split the jib world. Quebecker Charles Gagnier’s (French translation of his last name is “winner”) one-footed grind down the staircase on the final run in the tight competition left Montana’s Tanner Hall a point shy of an unprecedented fourth gold in his dominating event. Hall said he had thrown down the “run of his life,” adding that the judges were leaning toward rollerblading technique, not jib skiing. The jib community split. One side said Hall was robbed and that one-footed grinds, while unusual, were ripping off inline skating and skiing should not borrow any other style. The other side said one-footed grinds were hyper-technical and signaled park skiing’s overdue departure from its roots in snowboarding. This year, look for a rekindling of jib skiing’s hottest duel. But with Hall spending most of last year recovering from a broken ankle delivered when he came up short on a massive Utah gap jump last March, the door could be open for up-and-comers TJ Schiller from Canada and Sammy Carlson of Hood River, Ore. This could be the dawning of a new era in skiing slopestyle. We’re predicting new faces on the podium this year.
Finals: 1:30 p.m., Sunday
MEN’S SUPERPIPE | snowboard
Finland’s Antti Autti, 19, stole the premier X event last year. Autti’s back-to-back 1080s out of the gate on his third run unseated the perpetual podium finishers Danny Kass and Shaun White and earned him his first X victory. Then Andy Finch of Truckee, Calif., stole second with monster McTwist airs that left “The Tomato” White without any metal. Look out this year, as White is incendiary and eager to carry his fiery red momentum into Turin for his first shot at Olympic bling. But, as proven last year, this one could go to anyone. The lineup roster is overflowing with the biggest names in snowboarding.
Final: Part 1 – 5:45 p.m., Sunday
Part 2 – 7 p.m., Monday
WOMEN’S SUPERPIPE | ski
Last year was the first time the X Games featured the ladies skiing the pipe, and the ski world shifted. Smooth and ample amplitude revealed the women as a powerhouse in the pipe. Norwegian rookie Grete Eliassen rocketed to gold with the smoothest style of the entire X circus. Canadian Sarah Burke waltzed to silver and Pennsylvania’s Kristi Leskinen took home bronze. Burke and Leskinen have long ruled the women’s jib scene and last year showcased themselves in a variety of plastic-wrapped-but-not-behind-the-counter magazines, sans skis.
Finals: 12:15 p.m., Jan. 31
MEN’S SUPERPIPE | ski
Oh, the drama. Simon Dumont of Maine eked out a win over Montana bad boy Tanner Hall last year with ridiculously large air. Motionless, floating, NASA air. Hall was sore with second, delivering one of the more memorable post-comp X interviews after judges tapped Dumont. A couple of nasty injuries by Dumont and Hall last year have left them fighting to return to top-flight status, so it could be time for the super-styled Swede Jon Olsson to bust his move and shatter the bronze bane that has left him on the lowest podium step for three years. But then Frenchman Candide Thovex, the jib vet who took gold in 2003, is in top form, as is Canada’s TJ Schiller, a dark-horse ripper with a buttery smooth 1080. The crowd favorite will be Carbondale’s Peter Olenick, who took bronze in 2004 but struggled last year with varying conditions in the pipe. Whoever wins, we predict 20-foot airs and the most technical tricks ever seen. This year, the boys will prove beyond question that skiers belong in the pipe. Will Oly eyes be watching?
Finals: 6 p.m., Jan. 31
SNOCROSS
Last year, Canadian Blair Morgan proved he is snowmobiling’s sturdiest with a decisive win in all four heats that delivered his seventh consecutive X Games medal. Captain Morgan again will be the man to beat this year, and 23 of North America’s lead-thumbed slednecks will be gunning for his yellow, honeycombed sled. Watch for young gun Steven Martin of Evanston, Wyo., to come in especially hot, eager to best the bronze he earned last year. X Snocross is only six laps, compared with the standard 15 in most competitions, so getting out front early is absolutely key.
Finals: 8:15 p.m., Jan. 31
– Jason Blevins can be reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
