X Games rookie from New Zealand wins men’s slopestyle skiing gold
New Zealand’s Luca Harrington learned he was competing just the night before the event
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Luca Harrington didn’t expect to walk away with hardware Friday.
The 20-year old had never competed in any X Games event and hadn’t planned to earn his first slopestyle appearance this weekend. But when he was bumped from the alternative spot and into the competition on Friday, he soon found himself on top of the podium.
“I didn’t know this was going to happen today,” the New Zealander said. “It’s been a dream just to be here … it’s absolutely an honor to just be a part of it this week.”
If you had watched him compete on Friday, however, you would’ve thought he’d been a veteran X Games slopestyle athlete.
As with the other events, slopestyle took a new format this year. The 10 competing athletes had two chances each to qualify for finals. Once ranked in the preliminary round, the top five athletes advanced to compete for the podium, getting scored on their best of two final runs.
Harrington ranked first in the preliminary slopestyle rounds, making the finals cut over experienced and decorated X Games athletes Alex Hall and Colby Stevenson.
But it didn’t take two runs for Harrington to win. He clinched the gold after lacing up a triple cork 1620 — four spins and three and a half inverts — on the final jump of a clean first run, leaving room for a victory lap on run two.
The other athletes, however, put up a fight.
Andri Regettli, from Switzerland, layed down a unique switch blender double misty 1260, starting backwards off of the jump looking over one shoulder, before transitioning to peer over the other shoulder as he flipped forwards twice and completed three and a half spins.
The lowlight of the day, he said, made the course additionally difficult.
“I barely could see the jump. There was no visibility, which made it really hard,” Regettli said.
He added that with the new competition format consistency is critical to first make it through to the finals and then onto the podium.
He said he was happy, however, to come away with silver amidst such stiff competition. The 26-year-old earned his seventh X Games medal and his fourth in the discipline.
Vermont’s Mac Forehand took home the bronze. The 23-year-old landed a triple cork 1620 off of the bottom jump of the course, landing after four and a half spins and three inverts. The bronze was his fifth X Games medal and his third in the discipline. He has medaled in each of his four X Games appearances.
“I had a lot going on and a lot of hard parts of the run, so to put it down feels pretty good,” he said.
But he said that he has more in the tank. Both Mac Forehand and Luca Harrington will compete in big air Saturday.
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
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