YOUR AD HERE »

Lindsey Jacobellis collects 10th Winter X gold in Aspen

Dale Strode
The Aspen Times
Light snow falls as the women's snowboarder X event takes off at Buttermilk on Sunday afternoon.
Jeremy Wallace / The Aspen Times |

Lindsey Jacobellis — one more time. By an eyelash.

Jacobellis, the most decorated snowboarder in Winter X Games history, added gold medal No. 10 on Sunday afternoon at a snowy Buttermilk Mountain.

She earned her historic gold courtesy of a photo finish as she just nipped Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic at the finish line of the snowboarder X course on Jacob’s Ladder.



After a nervous review, Jacobellis was awarded the gold, with 22-year-old Samkova taking the silver medal. Samkova also won silver in Aspen in 2014.

“It was really hard to see … the terrain,” Jacobellis, 30, said of the flat light conditions Sunday afternoon.




She made a late pass, taking a daring inside line that no one had yet to use on a big, banked turn.

“I had to go for that inside line,” said Jacobellis, of Stratton, Vermont.

And the inside line led to the lead and the gold medal.

The bronze medal Sunday went to 25-year-old Nelly Moenne Loccoz of France.

The men’s snowboarder X came down to a nearly identical photo finish.

Australia’s Jarryd Hughes, who won his quarterfinal and semifinal heats, also won in the final, just edging countryman Alex Pullin as chants of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” echoed around the finish corral.

“All I could think about was winning gold here (at the Winter X Games in Aspen),” Hughes said as he celebrated his gold medal. “It was a tight race. Everyone was kicking it.”

He said the accumulating snow added to the challenge in the elimination races of snowboarder X.

The bronze medal for 2016 went to German Konstantin Schad.

dstrode@aspentimes.com