It’s a funny thing, this playing the Pro Bowl before the Super Bowl. The annual all-star contest is bound to attract more attention this way. But does anyone really expect the starting quarterback from either Super Bowl team to suit up for the sideshow just before the biggest real game of their lives?
That depends on whether you’re talking football or snowboarding.
“We’re not concerned about our athletes going to the X Games. We just consider the X Games a good, fun event. There’s some pressure on the line, so it gets you to train keeping your nerves in check and really throwing down your best run,” U.S. Olympic snowboard team coach Mike Jankowski said. “This is what we do, and we do it well, so we’re going to keep it going. It’s really just preparing for Vancouver.”
Some 250 of the world’s top action sports athletes will compete in snowboarding, skiing and snowmobile contests when Winter X Games 14 returns to Aspen this Thursday-Sunday. Among them are more than 40 past and present Olympic athletes, including the entire U.S. men’s and women’s halfpipe snowboard teams competing in their final contest before the Vancouver Games open Feb. 12. Other international teams will be on hand to spar under the X Games limelight.
While competitors reap the rewards of added practice in the Winter X pressure cooker, it’s the fans who are the ultimate winners. Those who won’t be making the trip across the border to Canada can see all the ‘boarders in action live (and free) in Aspen, or catch the Olympic preview on ESPN and ESPN2 this weekend. All told, six men’s and women’s Olympic events — in the disciplines of snowboard halfpipe, snowboardcross and skicross — will undergo a final shakedown at Winter X 14.
Of course, those won’t be the only events at Buttermilk Mountain. The increasingly popular discipline of ski superpipe, ski and snowboard slopestyle, adaptive skicross and a slew of high-flying snowmobile contests are on the schedule. And two new disciplines will make their debut — skiing superpipe high air and snowmobile knock out, essentially a big air competition.
“I’m really excited about the new event,” said Levi LaVallee, a snowmobile champion who stole the show at Winter X 13 when he attempted a double backflip. “It gives snocross a similar event to Moto Step Up, which is always a crowd favorite. With my snocross and freestyle background, I’m hoping to be one of the front-runners.”
The two new events round out what is also a new schedule for Winter X. The schedule shift bumps the marquee men’s snowboard superpipe up to Friday night, rather than its traditional slot closing out the competition Sunday. That Sunday night time slot apparently will be filled on ESPN by some other Pro Bowl.
