ASPEN, CO (Jan. 31, 2016) – Chloe Kim (La Palma, CA) became the first athlete in X Games history to earn two gold medals before the age of 16 when she won her second consecutive gold in X Games SuperPipe on Sunday. Teammate Arielle Gold (Steamboat Springs, CO) snagged her first X Games silver medal, while Xuetong Cai of China earned bronze.
Kim dominated the competition despite the challenging, stormy conditions. Kim’s amplitude was above and beyond that of the rest of the field, and she threw an enormous 1080 tailgrab on her second hit. “I think I was able to maintain my speed really well and go a lot bigger,” Kim said. “I think that was what really helped me today. I’m just really proud of myself.”
Chloe Kim takes the gold medal again.
Gold also rode well, despite being sore from a fall in training Saturday night. Gold was coming in hot off a big win at the LAAX Open last week and she added her first X Games silver medal to her collection of two bronzes from 2013. The women did well despite the stormy conditions that plagued the contest. “It’s obviously challenging conditions whenever it snows like this,” Gold said. “So I think under the circumstances it was a really good contest.”
Seven-time SuperPipe gold medalist Kelly Clark (West Dover, VT) struggled in the 2016 X Games, finishing off the podium for the first time since 2007. She landed one run, but it wasn’t enough to get her on the podium, finishing fifth.
Arielle Gold finishes second, her third X Games medal.
Hannah Teter (Belmont, VT) finished sixth, while rookie Maddie Mastro (Wrightville, CA) took seventh at her first X Games appearance and Elena Hight (South Lake Tahoe) was eighth.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Chloe Kim won her second consecutive X Games SuperPipe gold. Her second run scored a 95.00: Huge backside air, frontside 1080 tailgrab, Cab 720 stalefish, frontside 540 indy, McTwist indy, alley-oop backside 540 nose
- Arielle Gold earned silver. Her first run scored an 86.00: Frontside 900 mute, Michalchuk melon, crippler indy, backside 540 tail, frontside 720 indy, Cab 720 mute
- Next up, the snowboarding teams head to the U.S. Grand Prix in Park City, UT, Feb. 1-7.
QUOTES
Chloe Kim
It was pretty crazy, waking up this morning to so much snow. I didn’t think we’d be doing the runs we wanted to, I mean, we were almost late because we were digging so much snow off of our car. But when we showed up the pipe was so good and I’m just happy that I was able to come out here and put the run down that I wanted to and go home with a smile on my face. I never come to contests with high expectations—I didn’t come here thinking I was going to win. I just want to do the best I can and if I land a good run, then that’s what’s going to happen. I’m just so happy with my riding today.
Arielle Gold
Last night I took a pretty rough fall—I fell forward and hurt my rib and shoulder so I was just really happy to come out and land a run. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out but my body was able to hold up today and I put down a run that I was happy with. I’m glad that I put down the first run—it got so much more challenging between each run. I try not to have any expectations when it’s like this—the snow is challenging and it can be anyone’s game when it’s like this.
RESULTS
Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe
