Olympic snowboard slopestyle gold medalist Red Gerard earned his first X Games title in his eighth appearance at the Aspen, Colorado, event.
Gerard, an Olympic champion in 2018, posted the two best scores of Sunday’s final (96.33 and 97 points) and landed an 1800 in all three of his runs.
He edged Canadian Mark McMorris, the record seven-time X Games Aspen champion in the event, by one point.
“I grew up watching these contests like X Games and Dew Tour and U.S. Open,” the 23-year-old Gerard, who is from nearby Silverthorne, said on the broadcast. “To have a gold here means, like, everything to me, and to do it with Mark McMorris over there, the best snowboarder in the world, and just to land three runs, man, today was just perfect.”
In 2018, Gerard became the youngest American man to win an individual Winter Olympic title in any event at age 17. He placed fourth in his gold medal defense in 2022.
Also Sunday, American Alex Ferreira won men’s ski halfpipe for a third time, posting the top two scores. In his final 95.33-point run, Ferreira performed four different double corks, including a pair of 1620s.
Ferreira, an Olympic silver and bronze medalist, beat a field that included Olympic gold medalists David Wise and Nico Porteous.
“A lot of people told me after last year to stop skiing, and man am I glad I didn’t listen to them,” said Ferreira, who was eighth at the 2023 X Games.
Frenchwoman Tess Ledeux added ski slopestyle gold to her big air victory from Saturday.
China’s Eileen Gu withdrew from slope after winning the halfpipe on Saturday amid right hip pain from a training crash earlier in the week. At the 2022 Olympics, Gu won halfpipe and big air gold and slopestyle silver.
.@redgerard entered Aspen 2024 with one #XGames Slopestyle medal, bronze. Now he owns gold. Gerard logged a 97 in Run 3 to beat Mark McMorris by 1 point. @MonsterEnergy #XGamesAspen pic.twitter.com/qAMwKpOPBx
— X Games (@XGames) January 28, 2024
