Aspen, USA (23 January 2020) – Competition got underway for NZ athletes at X Games Aspen today with snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott finishing fourth in the Pacifico Women’s Snowboard Big Air at Buttermilk Mountain, in what was the most progressive display of women’s snowboarding ever seen.
Zoi landed a new trick for the very first time in competition – a frontside double cork 1080 to complement a backside 900 and switch backside 900. Zoi’s outstanding performance was just shy of the podium due to an impressive array of tricks from an all Japanese trio.
Miyabi Onitsuka took the gold with three 1080 variations and a backside double 1260; Kokomo Murase landed a backside double 1260 and frontside double 1080 for silver and Reira Iwabuchi took bronze with a backside double 1080 and frontside double 1080.
Rather than the traditional World Cup Big Air finals format where competitors have three runs and the combined scores of two different tricks determine results, X Games runs to a jam session format. Riders try to throw as many tricks as possible within the 25-minute competition window and are ranked on overall impression rather than given a score for each trick.
Asked how she was feeling after the event Zoi said, “I am very happy to have landed a new trick in competition that I have been working on in training. The level of riding was so high tonight – it was awesome. I am looking forward to Slopestyle on Saturday!”
Zoi is the reigning gold medallist in Slopestyle and will be looking to take some of her Big Air progression to the Slopestyle course as she did last year to take the title.
Results: http://www.xgames.com/events/2020/aspen/results/
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5 years ago