European X Games

2010 was the inaugural year for the European X Games in Tignes, France. There were eight events, snowboard and ski slopestyle and halfpipe for both the men and the women. Overall the event was a huge success. Although there were some big names missing from the competition, the biggest of them being Shaun White, there was still a solid crew of riders who threw down throughout the entire competition. Snowboard slopestyle featured a grueling corse that seemed to last forever. In total there were eight features on the course, six of which were jumps. In the qualification rounds speed was a huge issue and some of the riders had a lot of trouble clearing the jumps. Along with some others that probably would have otherwise made it into the finals, Halldor Helgason missed out because he simply couldn't get enough speed to clear the jumps. In the finals judging was a huge problem as run after run left Stephan Mauer in first place. This was despite the fact that he had not done a very technical run and had skipped a feature. But, in the end, the judges came through, in the later rounds, and awarded Eric Willett the gold, Sage Kotsenburg the silver, and Marco Grilc the bronze.

Here is a link to Eric Willett's winning run. For some reason youtube wouldn't let me embed the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcw2XWlI3mk

In the pipe it was all Iouri Podlatchnikov, or I-Pod. He put down a sick run to take Matthew Crepel out of the top spot. What did it for him was a double mctwist 1260. I-Pod is the first snowboarder to learn this trick since Shaun White invented it. Personally, I think I-Pod does is better, because he put his in the middle of his run and landed it as cleanly as a straight air. The judges rewarded him for it with the highest score in Winter X Games history, a 98.00. Louie Vito put down a sick run but it wasn't enough to put him any higher than third.

Here's I-Pod's winning run. Sorry again for the embedding problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvpo4szSbhM

Next week is the Burton US Open in Vermont. It is the last major even of the season and ALL the big names in the sport should be there!