Austria’s Gasser wins X Games Aspen gold in snowboard big air
Experience brings her to the top of the podium

Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Anna Gasser wasn’t sure she’d get another X Games Aspen gold medal.
That is until she landed a switch triple cork 1260 — or three inverts and three-and-a-half spins — while flying over 70 feet in the women’s snowboard big air final amidst single-digit temperatures.
At 33, Gasser said this gold medal is “special.”
“I wasn’t sure if I had it in me anymore to get another gold medal at X Games, just because I’m one of the older competitors now,” she said. “And the young generation — they are pushing so much. They’re inspiring and riding so well. So, to still get it was unbelievable.”
The Austrian is 10 years older than silver medalist Reira Iwabuchi from Japan, and bronze medalist Zoi Sadowski-Synnott from New Zealand. The medal was Gasser’s fourth gold in big air and eighth X Games medal overall.
Coming back to the discipline was a mental battle after taking a hard crash at the end of last year, which makes the gold even more remarkable, she said.
X Games women’s big air took a new format this year. Eight competitors began the competition, taking three preliminary runs each. The group was whittled down to four after judges ranked the athletes on the best of their three runs. Previous runs forgotten, the four athletes in the finals were judged on the best of two runs.
With such fierce competition, Gasser said it’s a great time to be part of women’s snowboarding. Each athlete spun at least three-and-a-half times for the tricks that landed them on the podium.
Iwabuchi took silver with a frontside 1440 double tail grab, or four spins while grabbing the tail of her snowboard with both hands. She said she’d only done the trick twice before this competition.
“I just focused on my landing, like, don’t think about anything, just what I’m doing,” she said.
Sadowski-Synnott also battled to win an X Games medal at Buttermilk after breaking her ankle last winter. But that didn’t keep her from pushing herself on Thursday night. She’d only done the trick that won her the bronze once before the competition. By the end of the night, she’d done it five times.
“I managed to scare myself four times,” she said of her mindset in the competition.
Jamie Anderson, 21-time X Games medalist, did not compete in any snowboarding events in this year’s X Games Aspen.
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
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