Cover: If only the judges had this graphic ;)
With Big Air barely more than twelve hours before slope, we bet Max Moffat, A Hall and the Birkanator had some tired legs going into today's slopestyle. The slopestyle course was touted to boost creativity and X Games has a little more freedom in that regard than the FIS events. Thankfully, we were also back to run scores, with three runs each. It's just a better format and easier for the viewer to understand, well it would have been if the scores made sense. X Games is the best and worst, of things with ultra-bullshit presenter chat (not Tom) and viewerbait, but one of the better courses and shows of skiing in the year. Win some, lose some I guess.
The first runs saw a whole host of bobbles from Max, Dollo, Ferdi et al. Andri R was the first to put it down and it was a stormer, featuring both way 4s on up top and a dub bio 16 buick on the bottom jump for 93.00. It was a hammer, only lacking a bit of rail tech. Jesper put down a heater too, with a bonkers rail run, blind back three swap transfer, and a dub misty 9 pretzel to switch dub 9 to 7. Only enough for 91. AHall is on Moncler now, which is either amazing or terrible, we can't decide. He got kinda screwed in big air, and run 1 didn't work out quite perfectly. There were issues for Birk and Colby too, leaving Andri on top after one.
The second runthrough, Henrik stomped hard. His final hit switch dub was huge and so steezed out it almost broke my brain. It's not the most tech but damn does it look good. Evan McEachran put down back to back switch dub 18s, there was one tiny bobble but the scored still seemed low though. Ferdi sent a triple but didn't quite stomp, we certainly weren't expecting it though. Andri stepped up his switch dub misty 16 to 18 but only gained 0.33 points for his efforts. In fairness, his weakness was the rails. Jesper stepped up his final rail with a huge transfer 630 bumping his score by two points. Mac stepped up too, stomping a triple 18 on the final jump, and capping his switch dub 12 blunt so perfect. 95.33 seemed high but it was definitely sick. Birk squeaked a run around, JUST bringing the dub bio 18 around on his final hit. The blind 3swap transfer on the rail and the right 16 on the shark fin were super technical too... 96.33. Scoring seemed a little out there but it was a sick run. The judges basically didn't leave enough space at the high end it seemed like. Colby put one down, ultra tech (blind swap to backslide), switch dub on the shark fin, nosebutter dub 16 stale... provisional third.
Last chance saloon saw Max Moffat finally put one down but a bobble on his shark fin hit killed his score. The switch 4 disaster was sick though. Andri couldn't bring it round on the shark fin on run three, but he got kinda screwed overall in our opinion. Maybe he deserved it for that kit... but his runs were pretty bonkers, switch dub misty 18 buick is totally fucked... Mac scuffed his rails, but Alex Hall put it down on the final time of asking. Most technical rails (switch up to the donkey was dummy), switch dub pretzel (12/10) to finish... 96. We're not so sure, we love Alex but maybe a boot grab... Colby couldn't stomp, ending the day in fourth, and leaving Birk with W.
GOLD: Birk Ruud
Silver: Alex Hall
Bronze: Mac Forehand
Watch the replay here (we will probably need to refresh this link, bear with us if it's gone):
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