As the “worst skateboarder in the world” Scotty James is content to let his contemporaries chase their summer Olympic dreams while he targets becoming the best snowboarder in the world.
Australian James finished third in the half-pipe at last year’s Winter Olympics behind all-time American great Shaun White and Japanese young gun Ayumu Hirano.
But that pair have ceded a significant advantage to James, taking time out of snowboarding in an attempt to qualify for the new Olympic sport of skateboarding at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
And James couldn’t be happier.
“I think I’ve got a very good opportunity to get ahead of the curve for the next little while for sure,” said James, who is preparing for next week’s X Games in Aspen.
“It’s one of the reasons why I am working so hard and not taking a step back just because those guys aren’t here (competing in Aspen).”
While White in particular has had a distinguished skateboarding career that’s included two summer X Games gold, James admits he’s virtually clueless when it comes to the sport.
“I am the worst skater in the world,” he said.
“I don’t know why, but I’ve never been able to co-ordinate myself very well on a skateboard.” That has left the 24 year-old able to concentrate on what he does best.
It looks like it has paid off this northern hemisphere season, James already winning events in Copper Mountain, Colorado and Laax, Switzerland.
He’s now eyeing off becoming Australia’s most decorated winter X Games athlete with another half-pipe gold to go with the one from 2017 and minor medals from 2018 and 2016.
James will stay in North America after the X Games where he’ll attempt to defend his back-to-back world championship titles in Park City next month as well as compete at the US Open where he was third in 2018.
His next key goal is at home where he is lobbying to get an Olympic standard superpipe built in the Victoria resort of Falls Creek in the next two years.
Aussies Scotty James and Rob Adelberg will be in action on the final day.
Usually a summer X Games competitor, Moto X rider Adelberg will attempt to back up his snow bike best trick gold medal from 2018, a few weeks after trying a snow bike for the first time.
— AAP
18-YEAR-OLD SUPERSTAR’S STUNNING RECORD
Californian snowboarder Chloe Kim may not be a household name but she is the future of winter sports.
Kim was born in the year 2000 and has ushered in the new generation of snowboarders.
She’s so good that she became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal at the Winter Olympics last year — a gold — in the snowboard half-pipe.
Kim came into the X Games in Aspen with four gold medals in the SuperPipe dating back to 2015.
In Aspen, she went through the first round in last, but her second run stunned the crowd and could not be headed by the other competitors.
Kim has piled up the records since she arrived on the scene as the first half-pipe rider to sweep an Olympics gold medal, a Winter X Games gold medal and the US Open, the first person under 16 years of age to win back-to-back golds at the Winter X Games and the first woman to hit back-to-back 1080s and land a frontside double cork 1080 in the half-pipe as well.
Kim has been dominating the snowboarding scene for years, as she also won the silver medal in the 2014 Winter X Games at just 13 years of age.
But the biggest news of the event was the final even of Kelly Clark, a five-time Olympian and gold medallist as well as seven time X Games gold medallist.
Kim paid tribute after her victory.
“I met Kelly when I was 8 years old,” Kim said. “I would always go to her for support and advice. It’s definitely going to be kind of weird, but I’m really excited for them.
“Kelly has been riding a lot of pow and I’m super jealous. She is having the time of her life. I’m stoked they are doing things they are passionate about and moving forward.”
As for the 35-year-old Clark, she leaves behind an imposing legacy but is looking forward to watching the next generation thrive.
“I’m excited to see where the sport goes,” Clark said. “They are pushing themselves, and I think that is the most impressive part for me when talking about progression, because the people who are doing it are doing it because they want to and not because they have to.”
‘INSANE’ LATE CALL UP STUNS
New Zealand snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott wasn’t meant to compete in the slopestyle competition in Aspen.
But the 17-year-old is happy she got the opportunity, going from second reserve to gold medallist after two competitors pulled out.
She became the first snowboarding X Games winner from New Zealand and continues a big event after claiming snowboard big air silver.
“I haven’t done well in a slopestyle competition for a while so this was mind-blowing to me — I’m stoked,” she told Newstalk ZB’s Martin Devlin from Colorado.
“I don’t think I’ve ever got 90 before in slopestyle so that alone I was so happy on — it didn’t really matter where I ended up.
“Then found I had won … to do this today, I can’t believe it.”
It was the first run she had done in slopestyle in her X Games career.
She scored 91.00 points from a possible 100 after performing two 900s (two and a half mid-air rotations) and a double wildcat (double backflip).
“The X Games for us snowboarders is the best of the best, an invite-only which has been around so long,” Sadowski-Synnott said.
“Doing this today means so much to me, probably a career highlight.
“I honestly came here this week just wanting to get a feel for the X Games — I was only in the big air at that point and focusing on that.”
She took to Instagram to share a simple message “Dreams do come true”.
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