Scotty James wins Dew Tour silver

Courtesy: olympics.com.au

SNOWBOARD HALFPIPE: 2017 World Champion Scotty James’ ‘never-give-up’ attitude has secured him the Superpipe silver medal at the Dew Tour in Breckenridge, Colorado.

The X Games gold medallist bounced back from finishing 9th at the opening Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup event in Copper Mountain last weekend to secure the podium finish this morning with a solid score of 96.00.

After he was left feeling disappointed from last weekend’s event, the 23-year-old was glad he could turn the result around in Breckendrige.

“I feel good, we achieved what we wanted to do,” James said.

“I was happy to come away with a second, which felt like redemption on last week.”

Not only was James pleased he could turn the scoreboard around, but he was thankful he was able to compete at all in Colorado.

“I took a pretty bad crash during the week on one of my harder tricks and I’m grateful to get up from that and come back and have a good week.

“It was cool to finish where I did considering I’ve still got a lot more to give, so I’m happy with today and grateful that I’m okay,” he said.

A very consistent day saw James’ first final run score 95.00, followed his best of 96.00 and his third run scored 94.00.

19-year-old American Jake Pates, who won gold in both the halfpipe and the slopestyle events at the Lillehammer 2016 Youth Olympic Games, won the gold with 97.33 showing he is a serious contender for next year’s Winer Olympic Games. Pates’ compatriot Ben Ferguson rounded out the podium in third with a score of 92.00.

Fellow Aussie Kent Callister narrowly missed out on today’s top-12 final, finishing yesterday’s qualification run in 13th place, just 3 points off a finals birth.

The Dew Tour served as a qualification event for the US Winter Olympic Team, meaning the American’s were out in full force over the weekend and putting everything on the line. The US athletes cleaned up the podium in the women’s Superpipe event with Chloe Kim taking gold, Kelly Clark in silver and Arielle Gold rounding out the podium.

Georgia Thompson
olympics.com.au