Fantastic Finn-ish.
No arguments on this day. Right before launching off the final jump on the slopestyle course, Finnish snowboarder Heikki Sorsa took his right foot out of his binding, flew off the 65-foot jump, did a 360 (with a frontside grab) and stuck the landing. He scored a 77.00 on the run and finished fifth in the event.
CRASH OF THE DAY
Bummer, Bummie.
It wouldn’t be boarder X without at least a little carnage. Saturday’s best biff came at the expense of U.S. Snowboarding’s Nick Baumgartner, 26, of Iron River, Mich. “Bummie” clipped a gate in the quarterfinal heat that sent his board sideways and launched him through the safety netting. He was not hurt, but the net has seen better days. “They had a pretty long course hold putting that thing back together,” U.S. snowboardcross coach Peter Foley said.
DON’T LOOK NOW
Tomato canned.
This wasn’t the publicity Burton wanted after the snowboard company signed Shaun White to a new 10-year deal over the weekend. White snapped the tip of his Burton board Saturday afternoon while warming up at the top of the slopestyle course. He had to do his first run with the broken board and finished at 83.33 points. He went to the board he uses in the halfpipe for his second slopestyle run, but didn’t score any better. His first run was good enough for bronze.
“I had a broken board and I still stuck my run, but the judges weren’t feeling it,” White said. “I’m ready to rip it (in the superpipe elimination round).”
He qualified second for tonight’s superpipe finals.
OCTO OR KANGAROO?
Octo and gone.
It wasn’t the cleanest, but has there ever been an air sicker than Charles Gagnier’s cross-armed, double-grabbed switch 1260 Friday night in the ski big air finals? He had a rough landing on the “octo-grab,” but it wasn’t enough to beat out Jon Olsson’s utterly graceful kangaroo flip, which earned him his ninth X Games gold.
The Denver Post staff
