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| Thursday, January 04, 2007 |
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Altitude Adjustment: Winter X Games
By Image Mag Staff @ 4:06 PM :: 524 Views ::
0 Comments :: Sports
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wordplay by Brian Kenney
How far we've come since Big Bear. Yes, the inaugural Winter X Games in Big Bear, Snow Summit, California; a decade ago. Shaun White ("The Flying Tomato"), merely 11 years old, but still impressive enough at the time to catch Tony Hawk's eye as a skateboarder at the Summer X games (then in Newport, Rhode Island). For this year's Winter X Games, which for the 6th time has Aspen/Snowmass hosting, the Flying Tomato will be making a certain appearance. How extreme would it be sans Il Pomodoro Volante. Mark your calendar: The Winter X Games XI, scheduled for January 25-28, 2007, Aspen/ Snowmass/Buttermilk Mountain.
Buttermilk has been home to the Winter X games since 2002, and in the last year shored up a long term engagement at the normally traditional ski destination that, ironically, until 2001 had banned snowboarding. This contract keeps the X Games at Aspen/ Snowmass at least until Winter X Games XIV: 2010. According to an ESPN news release, "Attendance has grown 91 percent since the games first came to Buttermilk in 2002."
While the venue hasn’t changed (and honestly, why would it other than to move to Vail?) a few events have. Gone is Big Air Snowboarding, joining the ranks of yesteryear's Winter X sports; Snow BMX Racing, Skiboarding, Ice Climbing--all residents in the winter extreme graveyard. That's the thing with the X Games. They are always in favor of reinvention: they avoid getting stale and in this day, age and attention span, that is an ever-evolving rotation.
The void left by Big Air is what has made possible the debut of Snowmobile Freestyle. A new twist on the old variation has the riders pulling table tops with their 500+ lb Arctic Cats over a “variety of jumps [that] will allow the riders to showcase the full arsenal of tricks.” According to Joe Duncan, Snowmobile Sport Organizer, “This will elevate the sport to a new level, allow new talent to emerge and bring incredible tricks to an already amazing sport. With 500-lb. machines doing back flips, it is sure to amaze on-site spectators as well as our television audience.” ESPN hopes to capitalize on the extreme attention garnered by Travis Pastrana's double back flip at last summer's Summer X Games during Moto X; the summer equivalent of Snowmobile Freestyle.
At press time, ESPN has invited over 250 athletes to participate in the events; all gold medal winners are automatically invited back, with the rest of the field earning bids over the course of the year at various Extreme Games qualifiers, such as the Gravity Games. Most notably, the aforementioned White is the highest profile bid, specifically after his widely publicized Gold at last year’s Olympic Games in Torino. White always seems to bring his "A" game and last year was no exception when he landed three clean 1080s (three rotations), earning an X Games Gold score of 95 out of 100. "Honestly, I think the pressure makes me ride way better. And it always makes me go bigger," White told ESPN.
One rider who doesn't give into pressure but always goes bigger is Lindsey Jacobellis; Olympic snowboarder who dropped the ball at last year's Torino Games. She went bigger during her infamous Snowboard Cross final at Torino and lost the gold. She never succumbed to the pressure, but instead opted for the convenient "I got caught up in the moment" line. "I was having fun," she told an NBC correspondent, "Snowboarding is fun. I was ahead. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the crowd. I messed up. Oh well, it happens."
While the pride of your country isn’t at stake during the X Games, bragging rights are. But the tremendous amount of camaraderie shown by competitors of both Summer and Winter X Games far exceed the companionship of our other spectator sports; this is what’s so endearing. Here participants will push their physical, mental, and emotional envelopes as ambassadors of the sports, but also for your entertainment. And for that they deserve more than gold. Here Nate Holland and Maelle Ricker will vigorously defend last year's gold in Men's and Women's Snowboarder X, White and Kelly Clark in Superpipe, and Tanner Hall and Grete Eliassen in Skiing Superpipe, just to name a few.
It’s not just the X Games themselves, but more of the nightlife. X Games contestants don't exactly shy away from evening endeavors, so parties brew all over Aspen. Let’s be honest, riders don't exactly have a clean record when it comes to laying low. With the rep extreme boarders have, it'll be like Olympic Village on qualudes. For live music, stop by the Belly Up, dance into the tequila sunrise hours at Chelsea of Lava. For stiffer drinks, beers, or brandies, hit the Red Onion, Bentley's, Eric's Bar, or the J Bar. Or just follow the crowd as everyone will do the same pub crawl at one time or another.
January 25-28 (Aspen)
ESPNEventMedia.com
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