The Winter X Games 15 in Aspen has come to a close after five fun filled, action packed days.

There was so much going on it was crazy as always but there are definitely ten stand out moments from this years event, whether it’s a trick or an outfit or just someone who deserves a bit of recognition, all are moments that will be remembered in X Games history for years to come. So in reverse order…

10. Medals for Billabong Ladies Jenny Jones and Jamie Anderson

Jamie Anderson with her medal

Britains’s Jenny Jones got another X Games medal in the form of silver in the slopestyle competition in Aspen this year. The Bristol born snowboarder who got gold two years ago in the same competition, led until the last run of 20 year old Finnish rider Enni Rukajavi , who pipped her to the gold. A few thought Jones was robbed of the Gold but she was gracious in defeat. American Jamie Anderson who has recently signed for GNU snowboards, came third.

9. Shaun White’s Non-Qualification for the Men’s Slopestyle Finals

It was a huge surprise to many when the ‘flying tomato’ Shaun White sponsored by all things Burton and Oakley didn’t even qualify for the finals of the Men’s Slopestyle event. There were rumours last year that White wouldn’t even make an appearance at this year’s event but those long ginger trestles where in Aspen to show the Superpipe who’s boss (see below) even though he looked like he just wasn’t trying in the slopestyle!

8. The Back Flip Brothers

Caleb and Colton Moore pulled off an insane tandem back flip on a snowmobile during Colton Moore’s second run in the Snowmobile Best Trick competition.

7. Sarah Burke Wins Gold Again

Jenny Jones Slopestyle

Roxy skier Sarah Burke won another gold medal in the Womens Ski Superpipe Final. This was her first competition back after a shoulder injury having only been cleared to ski by her doctors two weeks earlier. The Canadian who recently married fellow pro skier and backcountry legend Rory Bushfield, made history by claiming her 6^th X Games medal. It was an all Canadian podium.

6. Torin-Yater Wallace Youngest Competitor In The Event This Year

The fifteen year old freshman at Aspen High School and the third youngest male ever to compete in the WXG relegated Simon Dumont into silver medal position (later to become bronze) in the Men’s Ski Superpipe Final after throwing down a double flip trick as his last trick on his last run of his first WXG. This = instant rise to fame. Respect!

5 ½. Simon Dumont’s Face

On Salomon skier Simon Dumont’s first run in the Ski Superpipe Finals he fell pretty much on his face after compressing every other part of his body off the coping, on attempting a massive trick at the end of a near perfect run. It was bad and so was the noise that he made when he hit the deck. Then when the judges scored fifteen year old Torin-Yater Wallace higher than him putting him out of contention for the gold he looked utterly bewildered. Needs to practise his ‘best looser’ face, to be fair he hasn’t really needed it much in the past.

5. Kevin Rolland’s Gold

Scotty Lago wired shut. Photo: Ned Cremin

It’s awesome to see European competitors do well in ‘all-American’ events so we are chuffed for Frenchie Kevin Rolland who smashed the Men’s Ski Superpipe competition apart. On his last run after having fallen on his previous two (like many of the other competitors) due to the twitchy, speediness of the pipe, he threw it down pulling out a near perfect run. Huge amplitude and style made up his run of a double cork 1080, alley-oop flat spin 360, switch 1080, switch 540 to double cork 1260.

4. Torstein Horgmo’s Triple Cork Back Flip

Just watching the live coverage of the Big Air event knowing that DC rider Torstein Horgmo had broken ribs made us nervous. Then he crashed on his second final jump and it made us wince. Then on his third and final big air he stomped a triple cork backflip!Talk about running on adrenaline, bet he hurt the next day.

3. Scotty Lago’s Wired Jaw

A wired shut jaw didn’t stop another Billabong rider by the name of Scotty Lago making history by competing in all four freestyle snowboard disciplines. He didn’t just compete, he won medals. Lago bagged gold in the Best Method competition by, you guessed it, throwing down the best method grab and he was just beaten by Shaun White in the Men’s Snowboard Superpipe. A week ago Lago probably thought he wouldn’t compete at all after getting a back flip wrong in the backcountry whilst filming for Travis Rice’s new film and smashing his jaw to bits. He has been eating through a straw since.

2. Shaun White does it again in THAT outfit

Lago, White and Vito with Kevin Pearce (left) Photo: Ned Cremin

There was more talk of Shaun White’s rather tight fitting, all black leather look than his actual gold medal winning run at this year’s WXG. Some liked it most didn’t, one thing is for sure and that is that it certainly didn’t affect his performance. He absolutely blew everyone away with the height he managed to get out of the pipe and with such ease he pulled an array of tricks out of his ever expanding bag that most can only dream of. A Double McTwist 1260 sealed it.

1. Kelly Clarke – First Ever Women to Land a 1080 in a Competition

It was her first gold medal for five years and it was worth the wait. This was Kelly Clarke’s night beating Gretchen Bleiler five times Superpipe gold medallist, and fellow American Elena Hight who got bronze. Her 1080 was thrown down with style and landed with ease and Kelly Clarke has now upped the standard for women pipe riders.

Check out the official X Games Rollout vid below for all their best bits.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Next up in the X Games calendar is the X Games Europe in Tignes this coming March!

Skiing · Snowboarding · X Games

Billabong snowboarder Scotty Lago has pretty much put himself out of the Winter X Games 15 by coming up short on his third attempt of a backcountry switch double backside rodeo 1080. The incident happened whilst out filming with Travis Rice and Mark Landvik for Rice’s film for 2011, the sequel to his 2008 film ‘That’s It, That’s All’. Together the three had taken a week to build the huge kicker which sent them fifty foot up, the aim being for Rice to pull off a never seen before trick for the film.

It sounds like Lago smashed himself pretty bad, he fractured his jaw, chipped a bone in his chin, broke several teeth and cut his chin and tongue. The cuts required stitches and his jaw has been wired shut. Ouch! Regardless of this he managed to ride his skidoo twenty mountainous miles back to the town of Jackson, Wyoming before getting properly treated!

He was quoted as saying that he will ‘probably’ not be able to compete at the X Games as he ‘will be drinking through a straw for the next four weeks’. He was expected to do Billabong proud at the competition, being the only person to enter three separate snowboard events – SuperPipe, Slopestyle, and Big Air.

Here’s to a speedy recovery!

Billabong · Snowboarding · X Games

Winter X Games Real Snow competition is a new concept and competition added to this year’s Winter X Games in Aspen to be held at the end of this month. Snowboard videos have had such a huge influence on the development of all aspects of snowboarding over the last few years and have built a real culture around the sport since the first real revolutionary snowboard film, Apocalypse Snow.

Now US TV channel ESPN have joined together with the Winter X Games organizers to incorporate the two and during the competition the eight chosen athletes sections will be aired to millions of action sports fans across the world, showcasing rider and brand profiles. Additionally, all eight athletes will compete in the Snowboard Street competition live on Saturday night in Aspen at Winter X Games 15. Apart from the obvious expose there is $50,000 for first place and of course gold, silver and bronze X Games medals.

ThirtyTwo rider JP Walker is one of the chosen eight and at the age of 34, he is still rippin’ it, pushing the boundaries in his beloved sport. We love the vision this guy has to spot trick potential. Check out the segment from in the 2010 film People Creative’s Cheers below. Talking of ThirtyTwo go to our competitions tab on Facebook or the Two Seasons home page and ‘like’ us for the chance to win a limited edition 15th anniversary snowboard designed by Craig Metzger.

Other riders taking part in Real Snow are the legendery Jeremy Jones, Seth Huot, Joe Sexton, Nic Sauve, Louis-Felix Paradis, Dan Brisse and Simon Chamberlain. To see all riders parts go to the XGames YouTube channel and to play your part in the vote go to http://bit.ly/i4nfEt

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Snowboarding · Snowboards · X Games

Details of the second edition of the Quiksilver and Roxy Radar have been released. The search for the next big grom in the sports of skiing and snowboarding is on and youngsters will battle it out for a chance to participate in a special event at the Winter X Games in Tignes, meet some of Quiksilver’s pros like  Snowboard World Champion Mathieu Crepel and Ski World Champion Candide Thovex and above all win a years contract with the brand…

Are you or someone you know aged between eight and fourteen? If so, the first stage involves presenting a selection of skills via video and pictures so remember that this is a freestyle competition, it’s time to pull all of those tricks out of the bag. Around one hundred entries will be chosen to go through to stage two, the Happy Riding Days, which will be spread across fourteen European resorts. Check out the calendar here. Be sure to get your entries in by 16^th January here.

The Happy Riding Days part of the comp is where the groms come head to head and battle it out live in front of the judges. A video of each competitor will then be posted online where the public will be able to decide who they want to win together with input from the Quiksilver team! The winning riders from the Happy Riding Days will then compete in the Ultimate Jam Session at the X Games…no pressure there then!

All eighteen finalists will be treated as part of the Quiksilver/Roxy family at the Winter X Games and will be able to watch the world’s greatest snowboarders and skiers compete. That’s a win in itself!

Get practising!

Competition · Skiing · Snowboarding · X Games

A follow up to the news that the European X Games are now an annual feature in the French resort of Tignes, here are the top ten best bits of last years American version of the competition in Aspen featuring the victories of DC rider Halldor Helgason, X Games rookie Bobby Brown on the awesome Salomon Suspects and of course Burton’s Shaun White and his near life ending crash in the Superpipe competition which he went on to win with one of the best runs in a pipe, ever! Check it out!

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

Skiing · Snowboarding · Winter 2010 · X Games

Billabong pro rider Jamie Anderson has won the Burton New Zealand Open for the third successive year. Jamie’s winning run included a boardslide-to-tailpress on the down bar, a frontside 180 out on the up box, switch backside 180 mute, backside 360 mute, and a backside 180 mute. This awesome run earned her 79.20 points putting her straight into first place. She said after the event, “I can’t believe it, I love the Burton Opens and winning this event three times in a row is amazing, so I’m ecstatic and so stoked to start the year with a good result.”
Even at such a young age Jamie has many achievements under her belt already including the youngest medal winner ever at the Winter X Games (knocking Shaun White off his post and winning twice since) in 2006 winning slopestyle gold, TTR Series overall winner in 2007, Roxy Chicken Jam in 2008 and last year she was named ‘Female Rider of the Year’ by Snowboard Mag and Transworld. There are loads more wins and medals to add to that list and we hope there will be many more this season and in the future.
The Burton NZ Open is one of the first competitions of the year in the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour. This is the showcase event for the up and coming season and always a good indicator as to who will be ripping it come the European winter season.

Billabong · Burton · Snowboarding · Winter 2010 · X Games

We all know how big the X games are, PR people who don’t know much about Snowboarding would refer to the X Games as “The Oylmpics for Extreme Sports”. Shudder. The X Games is normally held in the USA, but has been expanding across the Globe to Asia, South America and now for the first time in Europe. The Event was held form the 10th of March to 12th in Tignes, France, the resort with year round snow.

The event hosted 66 200 people over 3 days of competitions, 150 athletes, skiers and snowboarders from all over the world. It was broadcast on TV to 166 countries broadcasting, so pretty much one of the biggest Snowboard & Ski events in Europe.

embedded by Embedded Video

Results

Billabong sponsored UK rider Jenny Jones continued with her winning streak and took Gold in ladies Slope style.

Competition · Snowboarding · X Games