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MATT MORNING/SHAZAMM/ESPN IMAGES
ASPEN — There’s caffeine in everything at the
Winter X Games, from the free samples of Perky
Jerky and the never-ending supply of green soda
to the athletes themselves. The courses, pipes
and jumps at Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain also
seemed to have an extra kick this year as the ath-
letes broke record after record.
For four days (Jan. 28-31) Aspen was the epicen-
ter of extreme winter sports. Defending Olympic
and X Games gold medalist snowboarder Shaun
White, six-time ski cross World Cup title holder
Ophelie David, former alpine hero turned ski
cross Olympian Daron Rahlves and rapper 50
Cent were just a few of the big names on hand for
the pre-Olympic event off the FIS books.
This was obviously no World Cup, but, like their
alpine racing colleagues, the athletes of the ESPN
Winter X Games 14 were not immune to what
seems to be an extra dose of injury-causing grav-
ity this year. Is the earth off axis lately, or what?
Before competition even began, free skier and
defending big air gold medalist Simon Dumont
came down hard while practicing in the super-
pipe. The 23-year-old eight-time X Games med-
alist misjudged the landing, bending his body
in half on the edge of the pipe’s 22-foot wall. He
pulled out of the big air competition but went on
to claim fourth place in the pipe contest, behind
winner Kevin Rolland. That same day, the pipe
claimed another victim in defending snowboard
superpipe gold medalist Torah Bright. The Aus-
tralian suffered her second concussion in three
days during a competition dress rehearsal and
pulled out of the event all together. And the inju-
ries didn’t slow down when they started dispens-
ing the coveted goggle-shaped medals.
On the second day of competition, thousands of
spectators lined the 60-foot-wide, 500-foot-long
superpipe for the event’s marquee competition
— men’s snowboard superpipe. With a collection
of U.S. and international Olympians including
White, Japan’s Kazuhiro Kokubo and “Dancing
with the Stars” contestant Louie Vito on the start
list, the event felt like a sneak peak at what’s in
store at Cypress.
White amped things up even more with a jaw-
dropping wreck during the practice session only
an hour before competition. In one of his rare
mistakes, White got disoriented while throwing
a Double Mc Twist 1260 and slammed his face on
the edge of the pipe, launching his helmet across
the massive chasm and drawing a huge gasp from
his fans.
