X Games Big Air Aspen 2022
02/02/2022
X Games Aspen this past week was a wild event, especially the Big Air. There are three skiing X Games every winter. The first X Games is always hosted at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen Colorado. Each of the three events are known to go crazy with the tricks that are landed, but X Games Aspen often has the biggest trick because it is considered the most legit. This means that the athletes want to throw down and do the most insane tricks they can.
The conditions for women's Big Air could only be described as god awful. There were a few factors that contributed to the horrible conditions. The first was that it was cloudy which made the light flat which means that while you are doing a flip you can not tell the difference between the ground and the sky. The second problem with the conditions was the snow was sticky so the athletes were having to be pushed down the drop in by their coaches so they would have enough speed to clear the jump. At the top of the podium was Tess Ledeux bringing home the gold, then Megan Oldham took silver, and Olivia Asselin took bronze. Tess Ledeux was in fourth place nearing the end of the competition, so she had to do something big to get on the podium. She certainly did this, she laced up the first ever double cork 1620. That means that she did two flips and four and a half spins. With that run she scored a 49 out of 50 which is absurd.
Men's Big Air was mind boggling because of the amount of tricks that were being stomped. The course was running great for the men's Big Air so they were able to push the boundaries of the sport of freestyle skiing. Alex Hall was on the top of the podium with a gold medal, then Mac Forehand got silver, and Teal Harle got bronze. It is debatable that Matej Svancer did get on the podium because he did the first ever switch quad cork 1620 in competition. This means that he went off the jump backwards then did four flips and four and a half rotations. Alex Hall also had a competition first which was a double cork 2160, this means that he did two flips and six spins. He looked like a top spinning through the air and then came down for a perfect landing, greasing the double cork 2160 and spinning into the future. Lastly, Mac Forehand taking silver was not expected because he was supposed to compete. He was an alternate, then he got called into the competition less than 48 hours before.
X Games weekend was mind blowing in all aspects and big props to all the athletes who competed.
Comments