Aspen – The women’s snowboard superpipe finals Saturday at the Winter X Games turned out to be a battle of attrition among the event’s past three gold medalists.
After Aspen local Gretchen Bleiler, the gold medalist in 2003 and 2005, and 2004 champion Hannah Teter of Vermont bailed, 2002 gold medalist Kelly Clark of Vermont was the last woman standing.
Clark reclaimed the top step of the podium with an impressive first-run score of 93.33. Despite having her right arm heavily bandaged to protect ligaments she damaged in December, the 2002 Olympic gold medalist dropped into a snowy superpipe and linked a series of tricks, which included a backside 540, frontside 540, frontside 720 and a switch 360.
“I’ve been battling injuries all season so I questioned whether or not I was going to be here, but I wasn’t going to be fearful and decided to come out and try to have fun and stick to the tricks that I feel more comfortable with, and I wound up coming out on top,” said Clark, 22. “I’m going to switch a few things up for Italy, but this is a great place to start for me and I just got some confidence back.”
In her first contest after having her appendix removed in late October, Australian Olympic rider Torah Bright (90.00) finished second for her first X Games medal. Her technical run included a backside 360 to a switch backside 540 and a big cab 720.
Japan’s Soko Yamaoka (88.0) was third, and Clair Bidez (83.33) of Minturn had a breakthrough performance good for fourth place.
White out
Shaun White showed up at Buttermilk ski area Thursday ready to hammer out runs on the halfpipe. He was looking to practice for the X Games and his first trip to the Winter Olympics next month in what is considered the best halfpipe in the world. But, he took a pit stop before dropping in.
“The first day I got here I went to go practice halfpipe and Olympic drug testing showed up, and so I had to sit there and I could not go to the bathroom because I just went,” he said. “It’s the weirdest thing ever to have someone just sitting there looking at you going, ‘Huh? Huh? Huh? You feel a trickle yet?”‘
