Tonight's Winter X Games Big Air was hands down the best display of comp skiing ever compiled into one session. The bar hasn't just been raised, it has been completely blown away. What we have seen tonight hasn't fully settled in and can only be described in short phrases: Mind-blowing. Completely baffling. The best display of Mutha*#&@#$ skiing ever. The sport has been forever changed. The finals consisted of two jam sessions, of five skiers each, for 15-minutes, with the top two advancing from each heat and the next best rider of both heats making the finals, totaling five people. The 10 competitors who dropped a multitude of trickery for the crowd: double 1260s, switch double 1080s, double 1080s… you get the idea. When the dust settled, Bobby Brown, TJ Schiller, Russ Henshaw, Elias Ambuhl and Jossi Wells stood atop and moved into the finals. Finals consisted of a 20-minute jam session, with the rider's top two scores counting (note: two different tricks must be thrown, each out of a max of 50).
Wasting no time, the riders put down their "stock" tricks. The double cork 1260s and switch double 1080s days are now numbered. In rapid succession, the five skiers had dialed those tricks, with scores floating in the high 80s. Then Jossi Wells turned up the heat, whipping around a switch double 1440, never before done in competition, which he landed three times in a row. Russ Henshaw tried new double rotations that boggle the mind. Then came Bobby Brown whose switch double misty 1260 had already scored him a 50, took things to a new level, throwing a switch double misty 1440 to stomp. The crowd went wild, angels cried and Bobby achieved something never done in competitive skiing history: a perfect score. But it didn't stop there. Sitting just outside of the podium, TJ Schiller took only two attempts to stomp a double cork 1620. Never before done in competition as well, Big Air Tom came to play, earning himself a perfect score on the trick. Perfection, and the jam was only half done.
Then in the final jump of his night, young Swiss rider Elias Ambuhl took a page from Jossi and stomped a switch double 1440, boosting him 1 point over Wells and Henshaw to take the bronze. Never before has 20-minutes changed so many lives. Teen Heartthrob Bobby Brown takes the win with a perfect score, with TJ Schiller and Elias Ambuhl rounding out the podium. Russ Henshaw and Jossi Wells taking a tie for 4th. The level of tricks has hit a new level and slopestyle finals tomorrow should be interesting, to say the least.
