March 15, 2012
Bobby Brown and Shaun White Win Their First Tignes Gold
USA Leads in Medal Count as Winter X Games Tignes Continues
Day two of Winter X Games Tignes featured the men in Ski Slopestyle and Snowboard SuperPipe where Bobby Brown and Shaun White took the awards stage for their first Winter X Tignes gold bringing the two-day total of USA medals to seven. Today was a one-day, record-breaking crowd for Winter X Games Tignes where 41,500 fans made their way to Tignes Resort for the event.
Men’s Ski Slopestyle Finals
Entering Winter X Games Tignes, Bobby Brown was well-known for his jumping prowess, but not his rail use until today. Not only did he land jump after jump effortlessly, but he landed tricks on the rails with the misty 450 Japan over the transfer rail and throwing double cork 1260s in both directions. Winter X Games Tignes gold adds to Brown’s growing collection of medals. He has silver from Tignes in 2010 and four medals from Winter X Games Aspen. The favorite coming into the competition and the number one qualifier in the Elimination, Wallisch was the man to beat, but could not keep up with Brown’s perfect runs and a score of 95.00. Wallisch earned the silver with a score of 93.33 while Norway’s Andreas Hatveit took home bronze.
“I knew by my second run that I wasn’t going to beat Bobby’s score, so I had fun with it and pulled out some old tricks to please the crowd,” Wallisch said about his performance today.
Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe Finals
Entering his first Winter X Games Tignes event, the seven-time Winter X Games Aspen SuperPipe gold medalist Shaun White led the field of eight tonight with his first run winning him the gold. White’s first run included a huge backside air, back-to-back double cork 1080, frontside inverted 540 and double McTwist 1260. Louie Vito, the defending gold medalist, secured another Winter X Games Tignes silver bringing his Tignes medal count to three. Gaining more amplitude as he went down the pipe, Vito landed four double inverts in a row in his run. Switzerland’s Iouri Podladtchikov rounded out the top three with a bronze.
“I would definitely love to return to Tignes next year and defend my gold,” White said about his first trip to the Winter X Games outside the U.S. “I was actually nervous, and I don’t get nervous – great field of athletes.”
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Media Contacts:
ESPN X Games Katie Moses Swope, +1-310-339-4552, katie.moses-swope@espn.com
Tignes Resort Stéphanie Aillet, + 33 6 76 02 12 38, presse@tignes.net
CANAL + Events Olivia Payerne, +33 1 46 04 08 62, contact@agence-op.fr