Don’t know about you, but every time I tried to watch the 2015 Winter X Games, they were showing snowmobiling. And while the brap-brap-braping may appeal to a more massive audience than snowboarding, man is it annoying background noise. I did catch a few runs of men’s pipe and women’s pipe finals (Internet only!) but basically, I failed as a half-assed snowboard jounalist. In case you did the same and are worried about looking like an idiot around the extreme watercooler tomorrow, here are the highlights, in case you missed it.
Men’s Halfpipe
Spoiler alert: Shaun White requires an appearance fee these days, which ESPN ponied up and then tried to get its money’s worth with lots and lots of Blanco coverage. Unfortunately, he didn’t even podium. Let’s all take a moment of silence for Shaun’s run as the X Games sweetheart.
Women’s Halfpipe
ESPN was stoked on Chloe Kim. She’s the future, ya know. After she chipped a tooth in practice, they showed the fall like 1000 times so no one could forget just how tough young Chloe is. So when the score came in for her final run, 2 points higher than Kelly Clark’s previous high score, it made sense for TV, I suppose. Hand drag’s aside, Kelly ran out of halfpipe trying to top her, and history was made. Chloe Kim became the youngest person, male or female, to win gold at Winter X. You can’t make this stuff up, people.
Men’s Snowboarder X
Something to talk about: Trevor Jacob did a 360 off the first jump. He’s so zany!
Women’s Snowboarder X
Nothing to talk about here, folks.
Big Air
Triple, triple, triple. Anyone dizzy yet?
Men’s Slopestyle
It was a close one, a really battle for the ages between McMorris and Stale Sandbech. Hold on to your hats, folks, there’s a lot of twirling going on.
Women’s Slopestyle
Be outraged! Spencer O’Brien landed a backside 900, but didn’t even podium. And poor Jamie Anderson had to settle for silver.
In summation, join the Navy and drink Monster. Until next year…