The key to Thursday night's Women's Snowboard SuperPipe was amplitude, clean grabs, and oh yeah, frontside and backside 900s that rivaled the boys.
The night wasn't just about reaching the podium, it was also about pushing the envelope of women's snowboarding. Elena Hight, 17, took home the bronze with a technical and clean second run, but most importantly made history by throwing the first backside 900 in women's competition. The announcers were stunned, the spectators screamed, and Hight helped set the bar for how big the ladies now have to go. Last night's silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler, 25, was amazed by both Hight and Torah Bright's runs, "The level is just insane," she said. "It's fun to watch."
Bleiler also went huge, kicking off her first run with a flawless frontside 900, her signature Crippler, and back-to-back 540s, landing her a score of 91. Bleiler was stoked to once again compete in her own backyard. "It's always amazing to compete in front of my friends, my family, and my community." Going into the ladies' second run, it seemed that Bleiler would once again take home X Games gold in her hometown, but the champion ended up coming from Down Under.
Aussie snowboarder Torah Bright, 20, charged through her practice runs and held her momentum right through the finals with the most innovative and progressive run of the evening. Bright nailed a fakie to clutched fakie 720, a textbook McTwist, and switch backside 360 to backside 540. Her 94.66 score put her in first, and it was up to Bleiler to top her. In her second run, Bleiler sat down after attempting a Crippler--her signature move-- and ended up in second, and Bright finally found her way to X gold.
A slew of Aussie fans in the crowd went wild (an interesting side note is that yesterday was Australian Day) as Bright had become the first ever Australian to win at Winter X Games. Bright's gigantic smile lived up to her last name as she stood excited and stunned at the bottom of the pipe. "You go into every event just wanting to do your best run," she said, "and tonight I did one of my best contest runs, and it felt good. It felt really good!"
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