Words: Pat Bridges Photos: Mike Yoshida

Three’s the charm for Winter X Games 16 Big Air. On the evening of January 25th, 2012 the Rocky Mountains once again played host to the best Big Air punters in the game today as the unyielding tide of the triple cork swept over Aspen. Though only ten riders were chosen to chuck themselves for the masses, there was no shortage of talent, trickery or drama on tap.

In the lead up to competition it was the SPT builders who were focused on the tweaking as the speed afforded to the riders wasn’t commensurate to the size of the launch. After ample adjustments were made, the contenders were presented with a somewhat smaller, yet still formidable booter that matched up perfectly from lip to landing. Unfortunately the decline in pop and travel meant that any riders looking to truly push their repertoire needed to exaggerate their hang time by taking their tricks deep into the landing, which is never ideal. These strategic machinations were subtle ones as the riders rose to the occasion and consistently threw down all evening.

Though they didn’t make the finals, Ståle Sandbech and Halldór Helgason hucked with boucoup style, with the latter nearly landing his backside twelve double cork chicken wing, dubbed “The Lobster Roll.” On a side note, using a brand’s trademark in the name of a trick is some next level marketing shit. Chalk another one up for the unlikely genius that is Iceland’s Halldór Helgason.

The non-stop jam format finals began with an array of double corks and four-digit flat spins by Eric Willett, Seppe Smits, and Sebastién Toutant. A third of the way into the heat, Torstein Horgmo manned up to the maneuver that he pioneered: the triple cork. Though Torstein sat on his attempt, the seal was broken and Mark McMorris tripled up his cork agenda as well. At roughly the halfway point, the regular footer from Regina, Seskatchewan rode away from a backside 1440 triple cork and instantly, snowboarding in the X Games officially entered a new era. With the clock running out it looked as though McMorris was a lock for first place until defending X Games Big Air champion Torstein Horgmo dropped in for one final attempt at his version of the backside 1440 triple cork, for which he earned a perfect score of 50, one point better than McMorris. Yet having the best single score of the night wouldn’t be enough for Torstein to top McMorris’s consistency and the 18 year-old Canadian received his first X Games Gold, but surely not his last.