Australian athletes have had a record day at the winter X-Games in Aspen, USA, featuring a first ever double medal performance in the halfpipe with Scotty James claiming his sixth X-Games victory together with super teen Valentino Guseli in bronze and his first X-Games podium. Tess Coady also claimed her first X-Games hardware with silver in the ladies snowboard slopestyle.
In snowy conditions in front of a huge crowd at the Aspen halfpipe, VIS athlete James was again the dominant rider, with two outstanding runs giving him back-to-back victories at the event. With victory secure, James could perform a “victory lap” on his third and final run, high fiving the crowd on his way down. Only the legendary Shaun White has more X-Games halfpipe titles with eight.
NSWIS teen snowboarding prodigy Valentino Guseli was also impressive with his maiden podium performance at the X-Games, with a spectacular third and final run to put him into second place. Swiss rider Jan Scherrer just managed to relegate Guseli into third place on his final run.
“This feels amazing, it’s hard to put into words how excited I am,” James said after his run.
“It was pretty challenging conditions to say the least as it was dumping so much, but I feel really happy to be riding with everyone and seeing how all adapted to the conditions.”
SLOPESTYLE SILVER FOR COADY
In the slopestyle event, 2022 Olympic bronze medallist Coady had her best result of the season to claim her first ever medal at the X-Games, and be the first Australian snowboard slopestyle medallist finishing in second place.
The NSWIS rider moved into first place in her third and final run, and was unlucky to not take the win, with the judges awarding first place to Olympic Champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott on the last run of the day. Rounding out the podium was Kokomo Murase of Japan in third.
The following day Coady was back in action competing in the big air event, where she finished in eighth place.
In snowy conditions in front of a huge crowd at the Aspen halfpipe, VIS athlete James was again the dominant rider, with two outstanding runs giving him back-to-back victories at the event. With victory secure, James could perform a “victory lap” on his third and final run, high fiving the crowd on his way down. Only the legendary Shaun White has more X-Games halfpipe titles with eight.
NSWIS teen snowboarding prodigy Valentino Guseli was also impressive with his maiden podium performance at the X-Games, with a spectacular third and final run to put him into second place. Swiss rider Jan Scherrer just managed to relegate Guseli into third place on his final run.
“This feels amazing, it’s hard to put into words how excited I am,” James said after his run.
“It was pretty challenging conditions to say the least as it was dumping so much, but I feel really happy to be riding with everyone and seeing how all adapted to the conditions.”
SLOPESTYLE SILVER FOR COADY
In the slopestyle event, 2022 Olympic bronze medallist Coady had her best result of the season to claim her first ever medal at the X-Games, and be the first Australian snowboard slopestyle medallist finishing in second place.
The NSWIS rider moved into first place in her third and final run, and was unlucky to not take the win, with the judges awarding first place to Olympic Champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott on the last run of the day. Rounding out the podium was Kokomo Murase of Japan in third.
The following day Coady was back in action competing in the big air event, where she finished in eighth place.
RSS Feed
