You know what the best part of X Games is this year? The fact that they don’t have to wear bibs. Kokomo took full advantage earlier in the weekend showing off a jacket you would never see on hill, and it is a nice view of some of the styles and brands that these riders enjoy or are obligated to wear. Well that, and watching Ayumu Hirano in the halfpipe. Even when Ayumu falls, it is coming down from a huge air and he slides out with more style than most riders will ever know above the lip. I figured the magic of Ayumu might have worn off by now, or at we would have been at least desensitized, but it just looks SO GOOD. You can’t turn away.

But he didn’t land one clean run during the finals so Scotty James continued his dominance and went back-to-back-to-back matching Shaun White with the threepeat gold in the X Games Superpipe. Not a bad run to watch either. There was some drama stemming from the possibility of Ayumu landing and challenging Scotty, but other than that James was pretty safe with Ruka and Kaishu battling for second and third.

If this write up is in past and present tense, my bad. I am writing it while the contest is going on. It is late and I am on Eastern Standard Time. Oh, and there is the first shirtless fan. But back to the contest. Jan Scherrer threw his signature alley oop, rookie Shuichiro Shigeno put down a solid run for his intro to X, and Ruka Hirano had his best performance that I can remember. Kaishu WENT MASSIVE like always and graced us with another timeless method clip. Not only is there a world where you could have a Japan sweep in pipe, you could have a Hirano sweep between Ruka, Ayumu and Kaishu. That is if Scotty James called in sick or didn’t land his run. Fellow Australian pipe powerhouse Valentino Guseli pulled out of finals right before the first drop due to injury (that makes too many for this X Games already and it is only day one) clearing the way for the podium to take shape. Overall, pretty entertaining final, but injury once again stole an exciting star from us and we need a few more wildcards in there to add some more excitement. Now, I am going to get off this couch and go to bed. Until tomorrow.