Fresh from the slopestyle contest here in Tignes that saw this French Canadian ripper one-up his friend McMorris and Finnish machine Piiroinen, we grabbed a few words with the best rider of the day – Monsieur Seb Toutant.

How does it feel to win such an event in ahead of your friend Mark McMorris?

It’s cool! We were also on the podium together in Aspen, and it’s the best way to finish the season. I didn’t achieve my best season this year, so it’s even better to finish it off with the X Games gold!

What does this medal represent for you?

It means a lot. It represents all the work and effort that I put in my riding, it’s a wonderfull reward for all this. I’m going to keep this medal all my life now, I’m sure I’ll be still proud of it when I get old! The X Games might happen every year, but it’s still a very prestigious event to win.

How would you see it compared to the Olympics?

It’s for sure different. Ok the common point is, a victory is a victory, you know. But for the rest, it’s not the same vibe. At the Olympic, Mr and Ms Smith can watch you, they know about the Olympics. The riders take it a bit differently as well I guess. But for me the X Games as just as prestigious. Proof is, the level you’ve seen today, and that level will keep growing as well. And each big comp pushes the riders to progress and throw down bigger stuff.

And I’m sure winning those gives you a lot of confidence for the future, right?

For sure, it feels like the more you win in one season, the more you get chance to win the following event. that’s called confidence, for sure.

What did you think of the course today?

When I first saw it, I found the kickers a bit small, even the rails. But after practicing on it, it happened to be quite creative with lots of rail options, as well as taking maximum speed for the jumps, which were very secure and fun to ride. So in the end, it wasn’t the biggest, but I had a lot of fun. I wish I could ride that course everyday! And the good conditions helped tremendously as well to make the most out of it.

What’s your program for the rest of the season?

I’m going to the Shake Down in Montreal, this will be my last contest this season. Then I’m going to shoot some street rails. I have now a filmer – Sunset Film Productions – that follows me at competitions and on every shoot, so I can be efficient at producing stuff. We bought a Red camera to optimize things so hopefully it pays off! I plan to go to Superpark as well. The shoots are important too, even though I’ve always concentrated more on the contest side of things. Both are good to do.

Precisely. You don’t miss the Canadian backcountry too much?

For sure, I also love backcountry. But you know I think I’ll have time to do more of that and put all my energy in it later in my career. For the moment I’m lucky enough to win some contests and do well on the competitive side of things. Plus I think riding contest helps my overall level, I become a better rider doing all these contests, my bag of tricks is growing and hopefully when it’s time to go shooting full time, I’ll be able to throw down some interesting video parts!

1. Silje Norendal

2. Jamie Anderson

3. Kjersti Buaas

[If words aren't your cuppa, make sure your head over to watch the podium X Games slopestyle runs.]

After a spectacular pipe final yesterday – see the medal winning runs here, Tignes was ready for the slopstyle – men’s and women’s finals. Triples were on the menu, obviously…

This time round it was boys for once, who got to open up the day on a course that have been described as mellow but fun to ride by most of the riders out there. Proof is, Chas Guldemond, who didn’t make the cut, was still practicing with the finalists with a big smile on his face.

So Stale Sandbech is up first, goes smooth on the two sets of rails but takes a hard slam on the bigger kicker (second one), on an early triple attempt. No round of observation or calculation here! Same deal for Kostenburg, also bailing a 12 on the second kicker.

Gjermund Braaten is the first one to put down a complete run: Cab double 9, front 10, back 12 on the kickers, and first provisory place. Peetu who strategically kept his strength for the slope today – and didn’t enter the pipe final yesterday for this purpose – strikes hard on his first run, especially on the kickers, 3 huge tricks down the two third of the landing, in particular on a pretty sick Front 12.

Seb Toots starts tech on the first rail, switch hard way 270, then sends it hard on the kickers: Cab 12, back 10, front 10 dub, with a bit of a hand drag. Enough to get him 88 points, and goes straight in first place, in front of Peetu (82) and Braaten (78).

Mark McMorris, the bookie’s favorite, has maybe a bit of pressure on his shoulders – after the qualis were dominated by Torstein, and also because he’s expect to win. Mark also, bails on the second booter, going yet again for a triple. Torstein Horgmo goes also clean on the rails, before back 12, then he goes for back triple 14 on the second kicker but the compression sent him on his ass.

Second round, Stale and Sage can’t really improve they score and have a hard time with that second main feature it seems. Braaten puts down another very solid run, on the opposite of Willett, who only manage to land his switch back 12 on the second booter.

Peetu was obviously determined to improve, and he does, even on the amplitude… Until a failed backside 1440. But, hey, Toots second run? Just impressive. All the riders are cheering for that sick run, and the judges like it as well: 95 points, securing his first place. Switch hard way BS 270, Cab 12, and the sickest trick of the day back 14 that some people might call a triple!

That is when McMorris stomped the second triple of the day on the main jump, with style and amplitude. Shame for him, his first landing wasn’t super clean and doesn’t beat Toots score, for the moment anyway. Torstein, closing this second round, goes for the triple but bails it – nearly landing flat down the bottom.

Final round for everyone, and Stale also goes for a triple on the main jump and goes down too short. Nollie front flip on the knuckle of the final kicker and a cheer to the crowd, Sandbech is out with the honors. Sage, sitting in fourth at this moment, knows he’s gonna have to send this triple, but doesn’t land clean on the first booter. Same deal for Braaten , he won’t improve either. Willett does improve and slip in fourth.

Peetu follows the rules of this third round and can’t put another clean run, still in third. Seb Toots is in the box, with a bit of understandable pressure – although probably not as much as McMorris who has to drop right after him. No real bail here for him, but not his best run either. He stays at 95.

Just before McMorris’ run, we learned that Horgmo wouldn’t go for his last lap. That low landing on the second run obviously didn’t sit well with his right ankle… So it’s now only McMorris who can beat his fellow Canadian.

Mark knows it, he’s gonna have to throw down the hammers. Switch BS 270 on, 270 off, Cab 12, triple back and BS 10. But… He pays for a bit of a scrap on this Cab 12. The score comes: 94. It’s a wrap, Gold and Silver go to Canada but in a different order this time, Seb Toots wins the Euro X Games slopestyle title and the two bros fall in the arms of each other. Peetu score yet another podium.

Next up: the girl’s finals, with an obvious favorite, Jamie Anderson.

Last night Iouri Podladchikov dropped the world’s first Cab double cork 1440 in a halfpipe as his fourth hit in the X Games finals in Tignes. That’s a whole lot of spinning and flipping all at once. And he was so happy to have come out of it alive that he forgot to land in the pipe for the last hit, crashing down from the coping before throwing his board into the crowd in celebration. The crash cost him his place on the podium, but he probably didn’t notice that either.  

1. Sebastien Toutant

2. Mark McMorris

3. Peetu Piiroinen

Despite Shaun White and Ayumu Hirano’s absence, yesterday’s superpipe finals at the X Games in Tignes went OFF. Check the full recap…

We were also expecting to see the 8 players from yesterday in the pipe tonight, but Peetu Piiroinen got replaced last minute by Taku Hiraoka. So the starting list looked like this, in order of qualification: Louie Vito, Scotty Lago, Iouri Podladtchikov, Christian Haller, Luke Mitrani, Arthur Longo, Benji Farrow and Taku Hiraoka. Peetu out. Injury at the training? We learned later from the judges that he prefered to keep his mojo for the slopestyle tomorow. Strange, but nevertheless the young Japanese rider – always the reverse order from the qualis – sent it huge on his first hit and appeared to be quite consistent, except maybe on his final hit, which was a double cork. But it’s ‘nearly local’ Arthur Longo who gave the crowd its first occasion to go wild. He started off with a massive Front 10 and manage to keep his stratospheric amplitude all the way down, sending him high and clean, even on his Front dub. His score: 92. The crowd went mental.

Luke Mitrani bailed on his last hit – double, quite gutted. Then comes I-Pod, sent it huge all the way, including his back-to-back doubles, but scores… a surprising low 82 points. Vito is another one to complete his first run solidly, with 3 dubs including back-to-back with a back hand pretty much in his pocket. He scored 84 points for that run.

On his second run, Taku also landed his double perfectly on his last hit and improved up to 78 points, into 3rd place. Another big improvement from round 1 was for Luke Mitrani. At this point we wondered what goes in I-Pod’s head: maybe something like “what can I do to improve my score?” His 4th hit gave the answer: bail as he was presumably trying a 1440. Vito’s turn: his second double sent him a bit low but he managed to keep a fair amount of speed to finish off with a huge and stylish Crippler.

Scotty Lago stepped up to improve, went double with a double grab on his first hit, and then slowed down to just carve the rest of the course. Probably still hurting from his first run’s impressive slam on the angle of the coping. A little later his fellow American rider Vito started things off with a double Crippler, went for a back-to-back double, and falls.

Hiraoka is up first for the final run, and went even bigger and better than his first run. A run consisting in three 10s, a 9 and a 12. Ouch! That scores… 86 points, second place. You could see a lot of nervousness on Longo’s face waiting in the starting box for his last run. He put down his run, huge and stylish again, until his double cork attempt where he missed the grab and finished on his ass. He was still Gold medalist at this point of the night.

I-Pod was determined to do something special last night, and then did: after his (and Shaun’s) Double McTwist 12, he sent a sick Cab 1440 double – rapidly dubbed the YOLO Flip – on his 4th hit, followed by… a coping hug and a scary slam. Smiling but clearly shocked, he started throwing his board at the pipe, before throwing everything he can into the crowd, including his board. Stoked to land this Cab 14? A trick never seen in contest. Or hiding his disappointment with this massive grin? It looked like if he had the choice between winning the event or landing this trick, he would have chosen the latter – the one that probably gives you a bigger place in the history books of snowboarding.

Lago was definitely injured and passed on his third run, so it’s the final run of the night for Vito. The last man able to take the Gold off of Arthur’s neck, and shut down the excited crowd pumping for le Français since his first run – or more precisely since the qualis. And it’s a double fest. Double Crippler first, and back-to-back (Double Michaelchuk Vito’s style), and then 2 more… But all Indies, except for the last hit. It was definitely gonna be a close call for the judges, who took something that feels like hours to finally give the Gold to the American, with a 92.66, 0.66 point better than Arthur. Merde. I mean, the crowd seems to say that, of course. Appart from papa Vito, exulting from the crowd clapping and shouting. Oh well, the closeness of the score could make Arthur feel surely a bit gutted, but he’s certainly generally stoked to be Silver, just like Taku to be Bronze. “I had no pressure at all tonight,” Taku said afterwards. Imagine: he was not even supposed to take part tonight until Peetu’s cancelation…

Vito said after his win: “The pipe is always so good here. I was a bit nervous after the first run. But I’m super stoked because this morning I woke up feeling old because I just turned 25 yesterday”.

Tomorrow 10.30 starts the Slopestyle Men’s final, followed by the women’s slope. Stay tuned!

The recently crowned Slopestyle TTR champion qualified first on the X Games Tignes slopestyle. Chas Guldemond and Jamie Nicholls are out.

As predicted yesterday, the sun was back this morning on the French resort, just in time to give the slopestyle riders the perfect conditions they could expect. And despite the (arguably) medium size of the course, some pretty sweet action went down. The set up: a first set of 2 rails, followed by another set of 3 rails including a big flat/down in the middle, then 3 kinda perfect jumps, and finally another set of 3 rails.

First to mark his territory, Torstein Horgmo, who was saying yesterday he had no expectations whatsoever for his last contest of the season, qualified in first position: switch BS 9, BS 10 double and Front 10 double on the 3 main features of the course, Cab 270 450 off, switch front tailslide 270 on the rail. His first run scored a shiny 92 points, bang. Unlike the ski qualis earlier, most of the favorite went through, except for Roope Tonteri – despite a solid run including a massive 9 and a Back 14. Guldemond though, didn’t manage to put down a really clean run. And Jamie Nicholls could also find reasons to argue about his elimination – Switch Back 9, Back 9 and Cab 10. Finally, Mark McMorris seemed to not really force his talent until the last run, when the Cab Double under and double cork 1260 got stomped perfectly.

Torstein will have the privilege to start last for the final tomorrow morning at 10.30 CET. And here are the results of the qualis:

1. Torstein Horgmo  - 92 points

2. Mark McMorris – 90

3. Seb Toots – 89.33

4. Peetu Piiroinen – 85

5. Eric Willett – 84.33

6. Germund Braaten – 81.66

7. Sage Kostenburg – 78.66

8. Stale Sandbech – 75

Rest of the program:

Thursday, 21st March 2013

- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Men’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 3:00 pm: Women’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 6:30 – 7:45 pm: Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 10 pm: Men’s Ski Ski SuperPipe eliminations

Friday, 22nd March 2013

- 10:30 am – noon: Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 6:30 – 7:45: Men’s Ski SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 9:45 pm: Women’s Ski SuperPipe final

1. Torstein Horgmo

2. Mark McMorris

3. Sebastien Toutant

4. Peetu Piiroinen

5. Eric Willet

6. Gjermund Bråten

7. Sage Kotsenburg

8. Ståle Sandbech

For the opening night here in Tignes, Men’s Superpipe qualifications and Women’s Superpipe Final was on the program. Here’s what went down.

The 8 female pipe riders ended up the action night in style on the perfectly shape half tube. Kelly Clark took the early lead with a clean and technical run noted 87.66 that included a first hit 10 linked with a massive 7 and a Front Rodeo. Definately a run above the rest, already on the first of her 3 runs… Just in front of the young Arielle Gold (only 16) who obviously wasn’t too impressed to be here, and landed her run perfectly with two 9s and two 5s, and 83 points.

Before the last of their 3 runs, the standings were as follow: Clark, Gold, Teter, Bleiler, Hight, Schaffrick, Farrington, Hollingsworth. First of the leading girls to drop in, Hannah Teter sends of a marvelous 9 on her first hit… Before landing flat and losing all her speed half way down. She won’t improve. Then it’s Bleiler; she bails her last hit and doesn’t improve either. Same story for Arielle, but she can be proud of herself.

We could feel it coming as the last possible contender for the podium drops in for the last time: Elena Hight. Despite a real good effort – back-to-back 7s and 9s – that sends her at the second place. Sealed! Kelly says hello to the crowd with huge straight airs all the way, and cash a meaty $30.000 check.

Women’s Superpipe final standings:

1. Kelly Clark  87.66
2. Elena Hight 85.00
3. Arielle Gold 83.00
4. Hannah Teter 80.66
5. Gretchen Bleiler 64.33
6. Maddy Schaffrick 60.33
7. Kaitlyn Farrington 59.66
8. Ellery Hollingsworth 55.00

On the men’s side, the elimination round went down just before the women’s final, and no big surprised happened to the favorites, except maybe for Markus Malin who took an early way out. Iouri Podladtchikov was also pretty close to the exit before pulling the 3rd best run of the night including a Crippler Nose, back 9 and Cab double. Vito was leading the bunch from the start with a realy impressive run including a Crippler Dub. The local crowd will be supporting a Frenchie in final, Arthur Longo, who was clean and high all the way, even on his double. On an overall impression, we didn’t see any breathtaking run but hey, it was qualis, right? And the crowd loved it, tomorrow will be a great show for sure.

So here are the riders qualified for the Superpipe final tomorrow (Thursday) at 6.pm CET.

1. Louie Vito

2. Scotty Lago

3. Iouri Podladtchikov

4. Christian Haller

5. Luke Mitrani

6. Arthur Longo

7. Peetu Piiroinen

8. Benji Farrow

The rest of the program:

Thursday, 21st March 2013

- 10:30 am – noon: Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle eliminations
- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Men’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 3:00 pm: Women’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 6:30 – 7:45 pm: Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 10 pm: Men’s Ski Ski SuperPipe eliminations

Friday, 22nd March 2013

- 10:30 am – noon: Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 6:30 – 7:45: Men’s Ski SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 9:45 pm: Women’s Ski SuperPipe final

Stay tuned! And once again, if you’re at the event, don’t hesitate to use the Hashtag #xgamesnow on everything related to the X Games in Tignes! Our Top 10 Grams and Tweets daily win Onboard subs and overall favorite wins a bag of swag including a snowboard!

Chas Guldemond gets wild on the slopestyle in yesterday’s training session. Photo: Tristan Shu

The snow is back on Tignes today, but it should clear up later this afternoon and the forecast for the other two days of competition, tomorow and Friday, are pretty good. The real snowboard action will start tonight with the men’s Superpipe eliminations at 6.30pm followed by the women’s Superpipe Final.

At the moment, snow is still falling quite heavily on the French resort and seeing that the Final of the ski women slopestyle has been pushed back to tomorrow, we might see some some delays happening today, but luckily this should all clear up by late afternoon to let the boys and girls in the pipe list to throw down as expected.

The good news is, the forecast for the rest of the event – tomorrow and Friday – is really good and we should see a nice bluebird like yesterday where all the riders (and editors) made the most of the fine March powder that Tignes granted us with. After this fluffy and sunny morning yesterday, Mark McMorris, Louie Vito, Kelly Clark and Jamie Anderson were the snowboarder’s representatives at the pre-event press conference, and all sounded pretty stoked on both courses: superpipe and slopestyle. The superpipe is of epic proportions – 180m long, 19m wide and 7m high – although McMorris admitted that the jumps on the slopestyle were not the biggest. Will that open up more possibilities for the underdogs? “Not really” answered the Canadian, adding that with such a stacked line up of riders, “everybody can win”. Indeed, we would have a hard time giving you an obvious favorite with such a rider list, both for slopestyle and pipe… Maybe on the girls side of things will it be a little more predictible, with the presensce of ultra favorites Kelly Clark and Jamie Anderson, respectively for halpipe and slopestyle. So the best is to be in front of your TV or computer from 6:30pm this afternoon for the men’s superpipe qualifiers followed by the women’s superpipe final. And if you can’t, check back here tonight and you’ll find out!

Here’s the updates schedule (with the delayed women’s ski slopstyle final):

Wednesday 20th March 2013

- 6:30 – 8 pm: Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe eliminations
- 8:30 -9:45 pm: Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe final

Thursday, 21st March 2013

- 10:30 am – noon: Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle eliminations
- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Men’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 3:00 pm: Women’s Ski Slopestyle final

- 6:30 – 7:45 pm: Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 10 pm: Men’s Ski Ski SuperPipe eliminations

Friday, 22nd March 2013

- 10:30 am – noon: Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 1:00 – 2:15 pm: Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle final
- 6:30 – 7:45: Men’s Ski SuperPipe final
- 8:30 – 9:45 pm: Women’s Ski SuperPipe final

oh, and the rider’s list is right here.

And on that bombshell, a few riders were willing to enter our prediction game, and here’s where they would put their money on:

Eric Willett (slopestyle) recons Scotty Lago will win this, but a close call between him and iPod. The Swiss Russian rider is also the favorite of Tortein Horgmo for the pipe.

Jamie Anderson was very much into the prediction game and chose Mark McMorris for the slopestyle, Kelly Clark and Louie Vito for the pipe.

If you want to see all the predictions from a mix of riders and punters, check this video.

And if you’re at the event, don’t hesitate to use the Hashtag #xgamesnow on everything related to the X Games in Tignes! Our Top 10 Grams and Tweets daily win Onboard subs and overall favorite wins a bag of swag including a snowboard!