Aspen is set to host two of the world’s premier skiing and snowboarding competitions next month at Buttermilk Ski Area.

The 2021 Freeski and Snowboard World Championships will come to town barely a month after Buttermilk hosted some of the same athletes at Winter X Games, adding to a growing competition schedule here in Aspen this season. On top of World Championships, Buttermilk will host a World Cup Grand Prix immediately after.

Worlds will include slopestyle, halfpipe and big air contests for men’s and women’s skiing and snowboarding, while the Grand Prix will only include slopestyle and halfpipe.

“It’s really important to these athletes and we are psyched we can give them another chance to get back to Aspen and show off their talents to the world,” Aspen Skiing Co. senior vice president John Rigney said Tuesday. “In a tough year you have to play a lot of defense. But you also have to play offense occasionally and doing an event like this and sharing the Aspen story to millions via the coverage that comes with the event is a good thing. It reminds people we are open for business and we are looking forward to their return.”

The World Championships, held every other year, originally were scheduled for Feb. 18-28 outside Beijing, which is still scheduled to host the 2022 Winter Olympics a year from now. But the International Ski Federation (FIS) canceled all Olympic test events in China this season because of the coronavirus pandemic, including worlds.

For a brief time it looked as if Calgary, which hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, would step in, but the city ultimately backed out late last month.

Rigney said hosting the X Games without any issues and Pitkin County coming out of Red-level restrictions put in place in January helped them look at the idea of hosting these events.

“It wasn’t as much we were chasing this, but when the opportunity came up we made it clear we wanted to focus on two things,” Rigney said. “One, pulling off a successful X Games, and two was seeing the community come out of Red. And once we got through those two critical mile markers, we reopened the dialogue and it came together pretty quickly.”

Aspen being named the World Championship host makes it two in a row in the United States for the event after Park City hosted in 2019. Sierra Nevada, Spain, hosted worlds in 2017.

Halfpipe skier Alex Ferreira is likely the only Aspen local who would compete in worlds this year. He finished eighth in his only world championship appearance in 2019. Crested Butte’s Aaron Blunck is the two-time reigning world champion in men’s halfpipe skiing.

Summit County, Colorado’s Chris Corning, who has ties with the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club, is the reigning world champion in men’s snowboard slopestyle.

“We’ve got the knowledge and capacity to pull this off in a safe manner. Knowing that and working in cooperation with our partners at the county, we decided to go for it,” Rigney said. “Right now we are in a full-on sprint to figure out what it’s going to take to pull this off. But we have a great template to work off of. We wouldn’t have signed on if we didn’t think we could do it right.”

X Games, which went from Jan. 29-31 at Buttermilk, was hosted in a “bubble” without fans and with daily COVID-19 testing for anyone cleared to compete or work at the event. Only 500 people were cleared to be inside the X Games venue.

A similar situation could be in play for the World Championships in March.

Competition is scheduled to get underway with the first qualifiers on March 10, with worlds going through March 16. After a day off, the World Cup starts on March 18 and goes through March 21.

The Aspen Grand Prix is a makeup for the canceled Mammoth Mountain Grand Prix and will be the first U.S. Olympic qualifier ahead of the 2022 Beijing Games. Snowmass hosted a Grand Prix and Olympic qualifier in 2018 ahead of the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Aspen also hosted the 1950 world championships for alpine skiing, an event that is largely credited with helping turn the town into a world-class skiing destination. Then came the 2017 World Cup Finals, highlighted by Mikaela Shiffrin winning her first overall title.

The World Championships and Grand Prix join the Revolution Tour (Feb. 22-26 at Buttermilk) and alpine skiing’s NorAm finals (April 5-16 at Aspen Highlands) as other signature events the town is still set to host this season.

“Right now we are just going to have to react from muscle memory and band together and pull it off,” Rigney said. “I’m sure we’ll learn a lot. I’m sure we’ll be calling in every favor known to man to rally the broader company to help put this on.

“But I tip my cap to our teams for rallying and agreeing to try and give this is a go. It’s been a very hectic and crazy year on a lot of fronts, but this also is incredibly exciting and it might be a once in a generation thing.”

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Alex Hall isn’t out there trying to be flashy or overly technical. The freestyle skier from Utah is more about using his imagination on the snow and chasing his own personal enjoyment.

“I just try and keep it creative. Especially on the rails,” Hall said. “Hopefully try something that the judges think is unique and that I enjoy doing. As long as it’s fun to do, that’s the main reason we all do this.”

Hall, 20, may not have had the single biggest “wow” moment in Sunday’s X Games Aspen men’s ski slopestyle final — Sweden’s Jesper Tjader can claim that with his unique switch front flip off a rail — but it was the Park City resident who stole the show.

Making his third X Games Aspen appearance, Hall had the best two runs of the contest to win gold, his first X medal in five tries (he’s also competed in the Norway event twice). He overcame a strong first run by Canada’s Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, who won silver. Norway’s Ferdinand Dahl won bronze for his first X Games medal, although he was well behind the standard set by Hall and Beaulieu-Marchand.

“I was super tired just from skiing all week. It felt good to be able to put down some runs. It was really good today,” Hall said. “A little flat light, but the course was really nice. I don’t know, I’m just hyped on the run I put down. That was the run I was thinking of at the start, so I’m hyped they all worked out.”

Fresh off his silver medal in the men’s ski big air contest Saturday night, Beaulieu-Marchand set the tone Sunday with a first-run score of 92.66 in the slopestyle contest. Hall had a solid 86 on his initial run to hold down second place after the first run. Dahl’s best run of 80.33 also came on his first run.

Hall took charge on his second run, a 94.33 vaulting him over ABM, who scored 86.33 on his second go.

“I was really hyped on my second run,” Hall said. “I just kind of wanted to try and up it on one of the rails, and maybe do the last jump a little bit cleaner. It worked out. I was hyped. That was a crazy score they gave me. It was kind of like a Hail Mary run at the end there, so I was stoked it all came together.”

Hall didn’t back off on his final run, perfecting a couple of his hits to score 95.66. But with the talent still waiting to go, even that wasn’t a guarantee of gold. However, ABM crashed on his final run, and last year’s medalists in James Woods, Oystein Braaten and Henrik Harlaut failed to put down anything in the ballpark of what Hall had done.

A member of the U.S. Ski Team and a 2018 Olympian, Hall won his first World Cup event in Switzerland in March and got his second win earlier this month in France. He was fifth in the big air contest Saturday, but really broke through with his X Games gold Sunday.

“This is definitely my biggest career win, for sure,” Hall said. “I was tired this morning, but we had a nice little practice session before. I was surprised to land three pretty decent runs, so I was stoked.”

Next up are the 2019 World Championships, hosted by Hall’s hometown of Park City starting Friday and running through Feb. 10. Held every two years, worlds is certainly a big deal, but Hall sees it as a step down from the hectic, high-pressure nature of X Games.

“I think it will be chill,” Hall said. “X Games is more pressure than world champs, probably. Hopefully we feel a little more chill compared to this. We’ll see. Definitely excited, though.”

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Aspen, Colo. – Hiking the Continental Divide Trail was never the end goal for Jim Harrison. But, little by little, that’s exactly what happened.

And it only took him 35 years to complete.

“That’s how little goals add up to big goals,” Harrison said earlier this week from his Aspen home. “I never had any thought that I was doing this.”

The CDT stretches 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico along the spine of the United States, with the highest section running through Colorado. Harrison was 43 years old in 1983 when he took his first step, hiking the roughly 76.8 miles from Wolf Creek Pass to Silverton in southern Colorado, mostly to fish.

More than three decades later, Harrison, now 78, took his final steps on his CDT journey July 29 when he completed the trek with the final section in Montana’s Glacier National Park. With him were about a dozen of his friends and family.

“That’s a story of an old guy finishing the Continental Divide,” Harrison joked. “My friend and I locked arms and finished the last 20 yards together. There was a lot of hooting and hollering. There was some people in the parking lot who came to see what the hooting and hollering was about, and when they realized that, they went off and got us two beers to celebrate.”

After Harrison unknowingly finished the first section of the CDT in 1983, he didn’t step foot on another portion until 1998 when, over about a six-year span, he completed the Colorado Trail. Beginning in 2004, he hiked the 800 miles of the Arizona Trail, which isn’t officially part of the CDT, but was important for Harrison as he is from the state and still has a home in Phoenix.

The final 1,000 miles all took place in Idaho and Montana, with the last section going through the Bob Marshall Wilderness in western Montana.

A former triathlete and distance runner who managed large construction sites for a firm back in Arizona, hiking sections of the CDT has been a large part of Harrison’s life each summer since 1998. Now that he’s completed his journey, he doesn’t plan to slow down. He and a friend are preparing to re-explore the Colorado Trail beginning next summer.

“For 20 years it’s been the summer goal and part of the reason to stay in shape was for this trip. I worked out hard. We were back here in May and June and I would climb Smuggler or Buttermilk in the evenings to try and get in shape for it,” Harrison said. “It was all good. It’s all beautiful country.”

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ASPEN, Colo. — After five years working with the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club, snowboard coach Nichole Mason has moved on to the big stage, taking a job with U.S. Ski and Snowboard in Park City. She was recently hired as the national rookie team coach for slopestyle and big air.

“It’s a really cool opportunity and I’m definitely honored that I got the position and they wanted me on board,” Mason said last week from Park City, Utah. “It’s something I’ve wanted to accomplish since the first day I started coaching, so it’s cool to be able to work my way through the ranks and have the opportunities that I did at AVSC. They are definitely a big part of the reason that I got the job.”

Mason, 28, was the AVSC’s Team 2 coach, which is composed of its high-end competitive athletes.

Among the snowboarders she has coached over the years is Summit County’s Chris Corning, a 2018 Olympian and X Games athlete who is on the U.S. pro team.

She’s also been the primary coach for Evergreen’s Jake Canter, who trains through the AVSC. Canter, 14, is coming off a strong season in which he won the Junior Jam in Vail to qualify for the Burton U.S. Open, finished first in halfpipe and third in slopestyle on the World Rookie Tour, and took second in the men’s open class in halfpipe at USASA nationals at Copper Mountain Resort.

While the official teams won’t be announced until next month, Mason said Canter will be named to the U.S. rookie team in both halfpipe and slopestyle.

“He’s stoked to come along with me and to get a nomination for both halfpipe and slopestyle is pretty rare. It’s a huge thing for him,” Mason said of Canter. “I’m very honored and excited to be a part of it and be able to use all those resources in order to help each athlete along their personal journey.”

Mason, who was born in California, has roots in Summit County, Colorado. She long worked with Team Summit before making her way to Aspen. She considers her main mentor to be AVSC’s Miah Wheeler, the former snowboard program director who became the club’s development director this past winter.

Last year, Mason was named the USSA Snowboarding Domestic Coach of the Year as well as the Development Coach of the Year, two of the top honors a coach can receive. Her offer to join the U.S. national team is hardly a surprise, and she feels working with the rookie team athletes is exactly where she should be.

“Where my strong suit lies is in the development of those athletes. I really enjoy the age range,” Mason said of the 14- to 19-year-old group. “Just staying here in this position and getting the experience and all that sort of stuff is going to be a good place for me to be for a while.”

Summer may be here, but Mason and the U.S. national team have already hit the ground running. Many of the snowboarders are currently training in Mammoth, and they’ll have other training opportunities throughout the next few months in Oregon, Switzerland and New Zealand. In between, the athletes will get plenty of airbag and dryland training in Park City.

“It’s beautiful here. I’ve had a handful of really great people reach out to me,” Mason said of her new home. “It’s been great so far.”

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Alex Ferreira didn’t make the 2014 Olympic team and it haunted him for years. But Thursday in South Korea, the Aspen freeskier was able to banish those demons forever.

“It just crushed him. And he knew what he needed to do to get here. It made him work so much harder,” said Ferreira’s mother, Colleen Delia. “I don’t know that there are any words. I was sick to my stomach. I’ve been a nervous wreck, but it’s beautiful. I knew he was going to be on the podium. He’s so ready for this.”

With his family watching, the 22-year-old Ferreira made the most of his first Winter Olympics by winning a silver medal in the men’s halfpipe in Pyeongchang. Less than a year ago, rattled by injuries and failures, Ferreira came close to leaving competitive skiing behind.

But Thursday’s silver medal brought everything full circle for the Aspen High School graduate.

“I was prepared for this day, I think. I just worked extremely hard and I’m happy to be here,” Ferreira said. “It’s amazing. I’m back, baby.”

Ferreira’s third-run score of 96.40 was bested only by the 97.20 scored by Nevada’s David Wise, one of Ferreira’s best friends and teammates. Wise also won gold in 2014, the first time halfpipe skiing was included in the Olympics.

New Zealand’s Nico Porteous surprisingly won bronze, while Crested Butte’s Aaron Blunck settled for seventh and Basalt’s Torin Yater-Wallace finished ninth.

“For me, this is the most satisfying competition I’ve ever had,” Wise said. “I feel so excited and just humbled by how Alex Ferreira skied today. Sharing the top two steps of that podium with Alex is amazing. The reality is the other guys had the opportunity.”

Entering the Pyeongchang Games, the U.S. foursome was favored to leave with a podium sweep. The possibilities seemed very real after Blunck, Ferreira and Yater-Wallace finished 1-2-3 in Tuesday’s qualifying, where Wise qualified eighth after landing his second and final run.

But after the first of three runs in Thursday’s finals at Phoenix Snow Park, Ferreira was the only American truly holding up his end of the bargain. His first-run score of 92.60 led the competition early, holding off Canada’s Noah Bowman and New Zealand’s Beau-James Wells.

Blunck was sixth after his first run of 81.40, but Yater-Wallace only scored 65.20 on his first run after backseating his landing and Wise couldn’t even complete his run.

The real surprise came early in the second run, when the 16-year-old Porteous scored 94.80 to overtake Ferreira, at least temporarily, on the podium.

“I was going to be just as happy with myself even if I didn’t get on the podium,” Porteous said. “You just got to go for it. You are at the Olympics. Why not just take advantage of it and harness that adrenaline and really go for it?”

Ferreira was the only one to answer the young Kiwi, scoring 96 on his second run to retake the lead two-thirds of the way through the competition.

“I was a nervous wreck, but I was so sure he had it and would nail it down. He was confident,” said Marcelo Ferreira, Alex’s father. “He worked very hard for three and a half years and the results, they are here. It’s a dream come true.”

Wise, who also crashed on his second run, overtook Ferreira on his third and final run. Ferreira had one more chance to reclaim that podium’s top spot and left it all out there with his best run of the night, but still came up just a hair short of Wise.

Prior to the contest, Ferreira and Wise each got tattoos together in South Korea.

“I am not disappointed the U.S. didn’t sweep. I would have loved it. There was certainly a lot of hype about the U.S. sweep,” Wise said. “It made me realize that freeskiing won today whether I landed my run or not. So that kind of gave me a little bit of a boost.”

Yater-Wallace crashed on both his second and third runs. Making finals in South Korea was a step up from Sochi in 2014 when he failed to make it out of qualifying.

Yater-Wallace did not talk to reporter immediately following Thursday’s finals.

“I would not be where I am today without Torin Yater-Wallace. He is one of my best friends. I respect him bar none over anybody. He is a fantastic skier and beyond that a fantastic person,” Ferreira said. “I worked really hard to be here and I’m just extremely happy to be part of the event.”​

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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Henrik Harlaut is a Big Air legend. What people forget is the eccentric Swedish skier finished sixth in slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and has a 2013 X Games silver medal in slopestyle.

However, all five of his X Games gold medals before Sunday came in ski Big Air, including his win Saturday, and he still felt he needed to prove himself in slopestyle.

“Since I only had gold in Big Air, there has been a lot of media, especially in Sweden, that is like, ‘Oh, Henrik is only a Big Air skier and is having trouble with slopestyle,’” Harlaut said. “That just gave me extra motivation and spark to show them wrong, in a way.”

Harlaut did so in a big way Sunday, when he won his first X Games Aspen gold in slopestyle to pull the rare weekend sweep. His best-run score of 93 topped Norway’s Oystein Braaten, last year’s slopestyle gold medalist, and Switzerland’s Andri Ragettli.

Ragettli admitted how nervous he was in the final moments of the three-run competition as he tried to hold on for his first X Games medal in five appearances. He looked good for silver until Braaten’s 92.33 on his final run jumped him into second and gave the bronze to Ragettli, who scored 92 on his third run only minutes earlier.

“A lot of pressure. I fell in the first one, which was, like, annoying. Then I managed to land the second one,” Braaten said. “A couple of mistakes, but I cleaned up in the last one. I’m really happy.”

Of the eight competitors Sunday, six finished with scores in the 90s, including fourth-place finisher James Woods of Great Britain, who was knocked off the podium with Braaten’s final run. Taking fifth was Canada’s Alex Beaulieu-Marchand; sixth, Telluride’s Gus Kenworthy, who was the top qualifier and owns an Olympic silver; seventh, U.S. Olympic bronze medalist Nick Goepper and eighth was Sweden’s Oscar Wester.

Utah’s Joss Christensen, the 2014 Olympic gold medalist, did not qualify for finals. He’s missed most of the season because of injury.

Harlaut’s winning run came on his first try and it even left the Swede impressed with himself.

“My first run was the best slopestyle run I ever did. To open up with that was overwhelming in a way,” Harlaut said. “That was the greatest feeling ever, because that’s the run I had planned to do. To get it right off the gate, it doesn’t happen.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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Final day whip around

Faces of X Games were full of smiles. Photos on PAGE A21

Hoffelin wins women’s ski Big Air and snowbike Best Trick finals. More in notes on PAGE A22

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Anna Gasser didn’t like her chances in Saturday’s women’s snowboard Big Air final at X Games Aspen because of a slight rule change the snowboarders only found out about a week ago.

Like in the past, the 20-minute jam session combined the snowboarders’ two best scores, but this year they were required to do one trick spinning in each direction, forcing many of them outside of their comfort zone.

“That was actually really hard for me,” Austria’s Gasser said. “With this change, I didn’t think my chances were that good anymore. But it also made me do a trick I’ve never done in competition.”

Gasser’s post-competition modesty was one thing, but her in-contest show was another. Behind a cab 1080 double cork and frontside 900 double, the 26-year-old Gasser held off Japanese teen phenom Reira Iwabuchi and American legend Jamie Anderson to win her first X Games Aspen gold medal.

Norway’s Silje Norendal was fourth (62) and New Zealand’s Christy Prior was fifth (41). California teen Hailey Langland, who won the inaugural women’s snowboard Big Air contest at X Games Aspen last year, did not compete after injuring herself Friday during slopestyle practice. Langland’s injury doesn’t seem serious and she was hanging around the base of the Buttermilk jumps during the contest.

Gasser previously had three X Games medals, including a 2017 slopestyle gold and big air bronze in Oslo. She won Big Air silver in Aspen a year ago.

Her gold Saturday came a day after the snow conditions led to her pulling out of the slopestyle competition, won by Anderson.

“I’m so happy, especially because I couldn’t ride slopestyle yesterday,” Gasser said.

Gasser’s two-run combined score of 86 was the unquestioned winner. Her run of 47 out of 50 early made it difficult on the other four snowboarders. Iwabuchi and Anderson tied with 71 each, but Iwabuchi was awarded the silver — her first X Games medal — based off her best individual run of 44, while Anderson’s best was 38.

Anderson, who already is the most decorated women’s slopestyle athlete in X Games history, now has her first X Games medal in Big Air.

“The X Games was a great event to gauge what the heck is going on at the Olympics next week,” Anderson said. “Today was really fun. I was stoked I put my runs down. I know they weren’t exactly how I wanted them, but they are still in the works.”

Big Air snowboarding will make its Olympic debut next month in Pyeongchang. Anderson will headline an American foursome that includes Langland, Connecticut’s Julia Marino and Idaho’s Jessika Rigby on the combined slopestyle/Big Air team. Marino also was scheduled to compete in Saturday’s X Games Big Air final but pulled out due to illness.

As strong as that team is, everyone will likely be chasing Gasser for that Olympic Big Air gold. She is dominating the sport right now.

Women’s snowboard slopestyle qualifying at the Olympics is scheduled for Feb. 11, only two days after the opening ceremony in South Korea. Finals are Feb. 12. The women’s snowboard Big Air finals are Feb. 23, two days before the closing ceremony.

“I’m just thankful to be a part of it,” Gasser said of Big Air’s emergence. “I think it’s a cool event. I think people are going to like to watch it because it’s really spectacular and a young, new sport. I was really excited when they announced it.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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Arielle Gold believes Chloe Kim can be beaten.

And Saturday at X Games Aspen, Gold nearly had her. Nearly.

“She can. I believe it, but it’s so great to have someone like that who is spearheading the movement,” Gold said of her friend and rival. “Seeing Chloe do back-to-back 10s, that’s going to motivate myself, Maddie, and all the other girls in the field to ride better.”

California’s Kim won her fourth X Games gold Saturday — and third in Aspen — in the women’s snowboard superpipe final, edging out silver-medalist Gold and bronze-medalist Maddie Mastro for an American podium sweep. Kim won X Games Aspen gold in 2015 and 2016 before taking third in 2017.

“I’m so happy to be part of this progression and to be joined by all these other girls,” Kim said. “It’s really amazing and inspirational. Just as a team we are so excited to watch each other progress and push each other and I think that’s the beauty of what we do.”

For the 22-year-old Gold, who grew up in Steamboat Springs and lives in Breckenridge, this was her second career X Games silver. The other came in the 2016 Aspen event; she’s won bronze twice as well.

The 92.33 Gold scored on her third and final run in the Buttermilk superpipe Saturday was arguably the best of her career. The 2014 Olympian — she didn’t compete in Sochi because of an injury she sustained ahead of the event — had been working on that run in the lead-up to X Games, and surprised herself when she landed it in competition.

“Been trying to land it at every contest. And maybe it’s not the wisest strategically, because I’ve fallen on it a lot, but it all paid off here and I’m so happy that it did,” Gold said. “This was the gnarliest halfpipe contest I’ve ever been a part of it, so to be on the podium is a huge honor. Especially third run to be able to put that run down when the pressure was kind of on, I’m really happy.”

Veteran Kelly Clark set the tone early in the contest, scoring 88.66 on her first run to eventually finish fourth. But Kim followed with a 90 on her first run and set the stage for a wild finish.

Mastro scored 89.33 on her third run to temporarily jump into second place behind Kim. On that run, Mastro, the 17-year-old from California, landed her first 1080 in competition. But Gold answered with her 92.33 and it looked like she might finally have her X Games title.

Then, Kim happened, as it usually does.

“I kind of like being in a situation like that, if that makes any sense,” Kim said. “It just makes me more hungry to land a run and especially to land back-to-back 10s. I haven’t done those in years. It felt so good to do that. Thanks to Arielle for putting me in that situation where I wanted to do it more than ever.”

Kim, known for being the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s in the halfpipe — the first time she did was at a 2016 Grand Prix in Park City where she scored a perfect 100 — pulled out her signature combo on her final run to score 93.33 and win another X Games gold.

Finishing fifth was China’s Cai Xuetong (84.66), sixth China’s Jiayu Liu (83.66), seventh Japan’s Sena Tomita (28.33) and eighth American Elena Hight (13.33), last year’s X Games Aspen gold medalist.

Clark, 34, crashed on her second run and opted out of the third run. She is set to join Kim, Gold and Mastro in the Winter Olympics next month (finals are Feb. 13), Clark’s fifth Olympic team. The seven-time X Games gold medalist has long been an inspiration for the younger women around her.

“She is the reason we are all here I would say,” Gold said. “Kelly has inspired me ever since I first started snowboarding and she is my biggest inspiration still. I’m grateful to have her here.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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It only took one off year for Maddie Bowman to start having some doubts. The halfpipe skier from South Lake Tahoe won X Games Aspen gold every year from 2013 to ’16 before settling for bronze a year ago.

Thursday at Buttermilk, she returned to the top.

“I feel good. I don’t think it’s really sunk in,” Bowman said. “I didn’t know if I’d be back up here on top. The women’s riding is so high right now, I didn’t even know who was going to win. It feels so special.”

Behind a second-run score of 92 in the three-run women’s superpipe final, Bowman held off Carmel, California’s Brita Sigourney (90.33) and Canadian Cassie Sharpe (88.66) for her fifth X Games gold medal in six years.

This is Sigourney’s second X Games Aspen silver, her other coming in 2011. She’s never won gold. Sharpe won X Games gold at Oslo in 2016, but Thursday marked her first Aspen podium. Her brother, Darcy Sharpe, was second in qualifying Thursday in men’s snowboard slopestyle.

“The X Games gold medal means so much to me,” Bowman said. “Compared to the Olympics, it’s so different. X Games is where our sport was born and where it came to be. So it feels really close to my heart to win this event.”

In fourth was France’s Marie Martinod; fifth, Vermont’s Devin Logan; sixth, Japan’s Ayana Onozuka; seventh, Germany’s Sabrina Cakmakli; and eighth, Massachusetts’ Annalisa Drew.

Bowman, 24, is the reigning Olympic gold medalist and will attempt to defend her title next month in South Korea. She was the top qualifier on the 2018 U.S. women’s ski halfpipe team, which includes Sigourney, Drew and Logan.

Sigourney finished sixth in Sochi, while Drew was ninth. Logan won silver in ski slopestyle in Sochi, but did not compete in halfpipe that year. She’ll compete in both in Korea. The women’s ski halfpipe qualifier at the Olympics is scheduled for Feb. 19, with finals Feb. 20.

“It feels great to have the girls with me,” Bowman said. “Every girl on the women’s team is so strong, even a girl like Carly (Margulies), who didn’t make the Olympic team. And to have them skiing alongside you really pushes you.”

Bowman is trying to ignore the pressure of entering the Pyeongchang Games as the reigning Olympic and X Games Aspen gold medalist. She did, however, receive a bit of advice from Park City’s Joss Christensen, who won Olympic gold in men’s ski slopestyle in Sochi.

“He said, ‘You don’t have to defend your gold medal because no one can ever take it from you,’” Bowman reiterated. “So I’m just going to go and set some new goals and have some fun.”

acolbert@aspentimes.com

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