Images: Getty Images

The sun has set on another winter X-Games in Aspen Snowmass and, as always, there’s a few talking points so I thought I’d touch on a few of them having spent most of the weekend glued to a screen and hiding from the rain in the PNW…

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Judging

One of the issues with last year’s X-Games was the judging. It’s well documented that nobody is ever happy with freeski judging, be it FIS, X-Games, Dew Tour or even SLVSH (which is now an X-Games Event apparently). The ‘23 X-Games saw the use of a live ranking jam format judging style which, quite frankly, made no fucking sense. It left us baffled, arguing in the forums and generally pretty put out. It’s hard to make sense of that judging style when you have precisely zero reference points for what differentiated runs. So in that regards, going back to judged runs with a maximum possible score of 100 was an absolute godsend.

There were a few dodgy calls, there always is. A Hall your apology is accepted for the boot grab. Big Air was a bit of a mystery to all involved and I’m not sure how well the 10-point style run fits into things but it was certainly a nice touch - Tess’ rodeo 7 dub Japan was a highlight of this addition for me. Knuckle Huck is now a big air comp it seems and Quinn Wolferman got robbed of a medal (I’m not bitter that I had him picked for the W and he got scored atrociously) and Jesper continues to be the most underscored man in competition skiing.

It was really refreshing to see what went down in the stunt ditch and creativity was rewarded here… I have more to say on Men’s Super Pipe but this section is labelled ‘judging’ not ‘superpipe’ so that can wait.

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Fits

Style is evolving rapidly in skiing, there’s 100 different small brands doing their own version of the baggiest pants ever but it seems the pros are on their own trip. This year at X-Games they did away with bibs so riders got to 'flex' their 'garms' and truly display their own style - what this stupid sport is all about really.

Alex Hall is now repping Moncler - $350 t-shirts are the name of the game. Nick Goepper was rocking a throwback kit to his youth days, red bucket and jacket and jeans. Which actually has a very important message behind it, part of Nick’s social media resurgence has been educating about more accessible ways to ski - so if you only have jeans to ride in so be it… maybe it’s more honorable than $400 parachute pants? Andri will get hate for his slopestyle attire but if Basquiat’s estate got paid then I don’t mind it. Harlaut wins tho. Always the most steezed.

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Superpipe

Halfpipe skiing will always be one of the most impressive freeskiing disciplines, without question. But, for the last few years it has gotten somewhat stale. We’ve had skiers like Noah Bowman trying to keep things stylish and the level of skiing has been insane - both way dub 16s are hard to call ‘stale’ but it’s lacked something that truly makes freeskiing what it is. Style and innovation. X Games Super Pipe ‘24 was one of the best halfpipe competitions I have seen in a long time - and being part of the comp coverage team with NS (sorry for the bad calls) I’ve seen my fair share. This had something about it, whether it was Goepper in jeans, Hunter Hess doing a misty 5 or Nico Porteous totally changing the game. This was a great watch. Dub 16 straight into a same wall alleyoop flat 5… wow. I wonder if we see him do back-to-back dubs on the same wall in years to come. I hope so. But I’m not sure physics can be bent that far.

In the women’s field it was, unsurprisingly, Eileen Gu who took the spotlight with a run that is pretty untouchable. Skiing through huge amounts of pain and still coming out on top, ‘pain is temporary.’ Amy Fraser was hugely impressive too, with 3-way 900s. Halfpipe, you’re back!!

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Big Air

Big Air was maybe the most controversial event of the week, at least in the Men’s category and Troy Podmilsak took home the W… whatever you think of that. It is what it is. But I will say he may have given one of the worst winning interviews I’ve ever seen. Tess Ledeux shared the true emotion of the moment when it came to her slopestyle win, Eileen Gu paid homage to the late, great Sarah Burke but Troy? Troy just wanted to win. Which is fair enough, we get it you’re a competition skier, ergo are competitive. You could have maybe shouted out your fellow competitors, thanked someone. But you had a ‘funny’ story about telling your agent you want to win? I need to refresh my definition of the word funny it seems.

The style jump was a nice addition but it maybe needs some tweaking. Especially if a dub 10 safety counts as stylish… that’s a ‘My First Dub’ not a style trick. Tess won this round for me overall, rodeo 7 dub Japan. Beauty.

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Commentary & Coverage

Todd Walnuts is getting better in the booth every year and when he was joined for Eileen during men’s halfpipe I think we had one of the best commentary duos we’ve seen in a long while. Maggie Voisin held it down too.

The coverage was better than last year, no Stoney McBlaze or Snowboard Jesus to be seen. It was replaced with a stream of consciousness on twitch which was eye-wateringly dull and mind-numbing. What ever happened to athlete profiles and their stories. Bring that shit back!

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Women’s Skiing Is Fucking Sick

That is all, and if you were triggered by my caption on Tess’ run. You proved yourself to be a mouth-breather. I said what I said.

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67% Increase In Women's Events At This Years Games

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SLVSH

This was cool to see, but as somewhat expected with a live format for a game we know takes several hours to film usually, they didn’t get finished. Kind of a shame but it’s also great to see the SLVSH crew get paid and I hope the wrinkles get worked out for next year. Maybe just play the SLVSH finals on one day? I don’t know if this beats streetstyle as a more watchable event.

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Final Words

All in all, this was one of the better X Games I think I've watched - at least in more recent memory. There's always something to hate on but we got a full weekend of dope skiing and things were better than last year imo. So argue, discuss or agree but one things for sure, that was definitely an X Games.

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P.S I won our staff prediction pool, thanks for the lunch boys!