Freeskiing podiums tend to feature the same athletes, at least for a couple years at a time, until talented young skiers change the guard. With Nick Goepper going for a four-peat, Bobby Brown always looming, and conditions making it look advantageous for the bigger-named competitors in the field, it looked like we may be in store for a predictable podium. Instead, we got one filled with an up-an-comer, a crafty veteran, and a fan favorite that overcame internal obstacles to finally succeed at Winter X.
Honestly, this was a bit unexpected: Jossi Wells has had success in the past but winning X Games gold is huge for the New Zealand native.The life expectancy of a competitive freeski career is short. Although he was the young buck in the group, the crew that Jossi emerged with is mostly retired; TJ Schiller, Simon Dumont, etc. The last time Jossi medaled in slopestyle at Aspen was in 2008. Is this the biggest gap in a podium-caliber performance in Winter X history? Not only is that a fun storyline, but the 25-year-old has also been a fan favorite for years, not to mention one of the athletes that helped freeskiing reach new heights. Many of the competitors that Jossi beat this year surely looked up to him before they achieved fame. It’s great to see one of the OGs of the sport win, especially since he hadn’t enjoyed Winter X slopestyle success since his first year in the Games.
Gus Kenworthy made big headlines this year and despite competing at the Winter X Games since 2011, and basically dominating the sport in recent years, Kenworthy had never medaled in Aspen until Thursday night with a Superpipe silver. In the October ESPN magazine interview in which Gus discussed his coming out of the closet, the Sochi Silver Medalist opened up about how the X Games have presented an especially big hurdle, partly because the cameras frequently show participants’ girlfriends in the crowd. Gus even admitted to ESPN that Winter X is “the one event [he] wants to do well in more than any other event in the season.” A pair of slivers ain’t bad.
A just like that, stars are born. Hailing from Norway, twenty-year old, Oystein Braaten came up huge with a bronze. With only a year of X Games experience under his belt, Braaten moved up from 13th last year to finish third this year. The young Norwegian went viral earlier this for year for being the first skier to successfully flip onto and off of a rail. It seems like every other week there’s a new name popping up on our favorite ski sites that goes temporarily viral. Rarely do those athletes then follow up a sick video spot with a podium at the X Games, especially in only their second year competing in Aspen.
