ASPEN — In yet another halfpipe contest riddled with many uncharacteristic crashes, California rider Elena Hight claimed her first gold medal in her 13th X Games appearance Saturday night under the lights at Buttermilk Mountain.
With back-to-back 900s and her signature alley-oop backside rodeo, the 27-year-old medaled for the first time since she won silver in 2013. The rider celebrated for being the first female to throw a 900 and double-cork in competition dusted off her back-to-back 900s on her second lap down the pipe to earn 87.33 points and gold.
“Itap all about pushing yourself and pushing your profession and the creativity of it makes me want to do something different,” she said.
Twenty-year X Games veteran Kelly Clark was poised for bronze, which would have been her 15th X Games medal, after a wonky run that both revealed her technical mastery — holding a grab throughout a lofty 1080 — and at ypical wobbling in the air.
Chloe Kim, the 16-year-old vying for her third consecutive Aspen X gold medal (her fourth counting her gold in Olso X Games last year) threw down a stylish yet not-quite-technical run. Known for her technical prowess, Kim dropped in with a switch backside air — one of the toughest tricks in the pipe — but did not spin her trademark back-to-back 1080s that have made her snowboarding’s golden girl. But it was enough to bump Clark from the podium, earning Kim her first X Games bronze.
China’s Xeutong Cai, last year’s bronze medalist, took silver with one of the only clean first-lap runs.
TWO FOR TWO: Rookie Julia Marino usurped Jamie Anderson’s snowboard slopestyle crown, throwing the first-ever double underflip in women’s competition to eke past the most decorated slopestyle rider in the sport.
With her second lap down the slopestyle course featuring the most technical rail riding of the day and that monster cab double underflip, the 19-year-old Marino from Westport, Conn., climbed from last place to first, finishing her X Games debut with slopestyle gold.
To go with her bronze medal in Thursday’s big air contest, Marino’s gold marked the first time a female competitor has won two medals at the X Games since 2000 when Californian Tara Dakides won slopestyle and big air.
“It felt so smooth in the air and when I landed it I was so excited,” Marino said of her historic final hit on the slopestyle course. “This doesn’t feel like real life right now. I’m just really on a cloud and I couldn’t ask for a better contest with a better group of friends. Itap really a dream come true right now.”
Anderson, at 26 years old the most decorated slopestyle rider in X Games history with 12 medals, four of them gold, took silver Saturday, continuing her streak of X Games slopestyle podiums since 2006.
The last of eight competitors on the course, Anderson had a chance to top Marino’s 94.66 score but opted to clean up her first run, with a frontside 720 instead of her big 1080 on the final hit, which might have bumped Marino from the top spot. Great Britain’s Kate Ormerod took bronze.
Anderson competed just two days after a hard fall in the big air event Thursday night, in which she finished fourth.
NEWCOMERS, PART II: Another X Games Aspen rookie, Lisa Zimmermann, made history Saturday night in the inaugural women’s ski big air.
Zimmermann became the first German skier to win an X Games medal and the first woman to land a switch, double-cork 1080 off the big jump, winning gold over 14-year-old Kelly Sildaru. Another X Games rookie, 18-year-old Giulia Tanno of Switzerland, took third.
“I had no clue where I was in the air. I’m kind of surprised I landed it,” the 20-year-old Zimmermann said of the historic trick. “I’ve been waiting for three or four years to get invited to the X Games.”
Sildaru and Tanno will square off again Sunday in the slopestyle finals, where the Estonian skier last year became the X Games darling as the youngest woman to win X gold (13 years, 11 months).
CLIMB TO TOP: Norwegian skier Oystein Braaten continued his X Games climb and won the men’s slopestyle gold to complement the bronze he won last year. Braaten, 21, didn’t advance out of qualifying as a rookie in 2015.
McRae Williams of Park City was the only American of the five in the 12-man finals to make the podium, finishing second just a point behind after a 93.33-point first run. Colorado skiers Bobby Brown and Gus Kenworthy struggled Saturday. Brown of Breckenridge finished seventh, and Telluride’s Kenworthy, who won silver last year, fell on both runs Saturday and was 10th.
