ASPEN, CO (Jan. 22. 2015)—There was no lack of drama in the X Games men’s superpipe final on Thursday night in Aspen, Colorado with the defending X Games gold medalist pitted against a reigning Olympic gold medalist and a 15-time X Games champion. The result? Danny Davis (Truckee, CA) won his second straight superpipe gold medal at X Games in Aspen.
Davis, Switzerland’s Iouri Podladtchikov, and Shaun White (Calrsbad, CA) headlined the eight-man finals showdown in Buttermilk’s halfpipe. And this year in Aspen, the halfpipe was primed and athletes were excited about the quality of the venue.
“This is by far my favorite halfpipe of any X Games,” says White. “They did a great job with getting the halfpipe ready.”
Early Thursday evening, a field of 16 snowboarders was paired down to eight during a tense and entertaining superpipe elimination round. Riders used their best score of two runs in the elimination.
Then, under bright lights, with cameras pointed at them, and in front of thousands of screaming fans lining the halfpipe’s walls and cheering from the bullpen at the bottom of the venue, the eight world-class snowboarders put on a clinic during the superpipe final.
Just like last year, Davis displayed a technical approach to halfpipe riding that the X Games judges rewarded with a score of 93.66, enough to solidify his second consecutive gold medal in X Games superpipe. While he put down different tricks and stomped all three of his runs in the finals, Davis still needed his third attempt down the halfpipe to win another gold medal.
“Before I dropped in [on my third run of the finals] I was just thinking that I needed to land a solid one because the first two had their glitches,” said Davis. “I landed three different runs in the finals. It’s hard for me to do the same run just because of boredom.”
The run that earned Davis his hardware included a nose-grab backside 720 to a stylish and vintage Danny Davis switch method, followed immediately by a cab 1080 and a perfect frontside 1080 double cork on his last hit. In addition to winning the gold medal, Davis’s last run also bumped legendary White off the podium. The silver and bronze X Games medals in superpipe were awarded to Japan’s Taku Hiraoka and Podladtchikov, respectively.
“This win was unexpected because I haven’t ridden much halfpipe this season,” said Davis. “But it started to feel like I was getting into a flow towards the end of qualis and then I had a lot of fun.”
Next up, the men take on the snowboard big air final on Friday night at 10:30 p.m. EST.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Davis took the halfpipe win while riding on a cambered snowboard due to the firm, cold conditions in the halfpipe.
- White has won 23 X Games medals since he first competed at X Games in 2002 (15 gold, five silver, and three bronze). He finished fourth overall.
- After his win in the halfpipe, Davis has been a trending topic on Twitter.
- Davis spent the most time taking practice runs in the halfpipe prior to Thursday’s competition because he had not ridden the halfpipe at all recently, having spent time riding powder in Japan to prepare for X Games.
- Brothers Ben and Gabe Ferguson (Bend, OR), ages 20 and 15 respectively, both displayed crowd-pleasing approaches to halfpipe snowboarding. Gabe Ferguson took eighth overall.
QUOTES
Danny Davis, X Games superpipe gold medalist
This win was unexpected because I haven’t ridden much halfpipe this year. I was in Japan before this, but after I landed my second run in qualis it started to feel like I was getting into a flow. The judging is tough these days, and I feel for all of us when we’re going to do our runs. You look at Taylor Gold’s (Steamboat Springs, CO) run and it was a pretty darn good run that he’s won two contests with, but it didn’t happen today.
RESULTS
Men's superpipe results
