Torah Bright, 22, recorded the highest women’s score in X Games history Thursday during superpipe qualifying. Her second-run score of 97.66 was a mere one-hundredth of a point shy of Shaun White’s X Games record 97.67 in the 2003 superpipe. “It felt so smooth, and I did well into the transitions,” Bright said. “When I did my second-to-last trick, I ran out of pipe. I was planning on doing one more trick. I didn’t expect it to be so good.” Bright won the superpipe X gold in 2007 and silver last year. The Aussie’s run Thursday included an inverted switch backside 720 and an enormously amped straight tail grab. Olympian Kelly Clark finished second with a normally unbeatable 95 points, and Hannah Teter qualified third. Aspen’s flu bug-battling Gretchen Bleiler is in fifth place heading into tonight’s finals. Jason Blevins, The Denver Post
