Two-time Olympic medallist Scotty James kept his stronghold on the X Games superpipe title with a fourth consecutive victory at Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain on Thursday, 23 January. With his victory at the 2025 edition, James becomes the first male snowboarder to win four straight halfpipe titles at the event, surpassing the three-victory record that the legend of the sport, Shaun White, set in the late 2000s.
Wearing his signature red boxing gloves, Australian star James topped the playoffs with a 93.00-scoring second run and sizzled into the final with an even more impressive 96.33 opener, landing a switch McTwist, cab triple cork 1440, frontside 1260, backside 1080, and switch back 1200.
With his victory already secured ahead of the second run in the best of two-run final, James dropped in for a victory lap, celebrating as he made his way down the pipe.
“Just winning a gold medal is amazing here at X Games, and to do four in a row, I am absolutely speechless,” James told the media after the competition.
“The triple cork is the one. It’s the trick I feel you have to have in the mix to have any intention of making any damage on the podium, so to put it in my run and do it switch and try and put in my own flair at the start feels good for the soul.”
Japanese duo Totsuka Yuto and Beijing 2022 halfpipe gold medallist Hirano Ayumu put up a formidable challenge, but fell short of James’ best result.
Totsuka had a solid first run and upped his second to an even higher 93.66 points to take second. Hirano was third with 92.33 points to round out the podium places.
Thursday’s superpipe win was James’ seventh X Games title and tenth overall. Before his four-victory streak, the 30-year-old snowboarder also won in 2017, 2019, and 2020.
Three-time Olympic champion White won eight superpipe crowns at the X Games, including a three-peat streak in the superpipe starting in 2009, and has collected a total of 15 X Games titles over his career, including in skateboarding.
The X Games action continues on 24 January and 25 Saturday with more snowboard and freestyle skiing events.
