A healthy Mastro finally reaches double at the X Games, but Korean Choi wins to set a record

The very best journey of Maddie Maestro’s profession stays forward of her.

The 22-year-old from Mammoth has lengthy established herself as the most effective halfpipe snowboarders on the planet, however accidents have triggered a bumpy street up to now yr or so.

That is why her silver medal within the girls’s determine skating ultimate Saturday at X Video games Aspen felt so good.

“I am comfortable. I have been slowly regaining my confidence and getting again to the place I need to be, so I am actually excited,” she stated. “Final yr, I damage in December and got here out…. I did not actually recuperate on the X Video games, and I nonetheless damage on the Olympics. It is good to have a wholesome season and begin engaged on determine skating.”

It was Mastro’s second X Video games silver medal, the opposite coming in 2021 when She was second only to Chloe Kim. She additionally has a bronze from 2018 however continues to be chasing that elusive gold medal.

Whereas Kim, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was as soon as once more sitting on the X Video games this yr, she managed to make headlines. Or reasonably, 14-year-old South Korean Gaon Choi did when she broke Kim’s file — by almost six months — to turn into the youngest winner of the occasion in X Video games historical past. She can also be the primary Winter X Video games medal winner from South Korea.

Choi, an X Video games beginner, checked out nothing however the no-score run hour jam. Its profitable run was a Nineties clinic, which continues to be comparatively few and much between in girls’s half-pipe driving.

Choi, who is restricted to English, obtained his “I am so comfortable” when interviewed on TV with Jon “DC” Oetken from down the superpipe after the competition. Based on her FIS profile, she has but to begin a World Cup occasion in her younger profession.

Because it occurs, Kim can also be of South Korean descent, a truth highlighted in her Olympic debut in 2018, which was hosted in Pyeongchang.

All the athletes on Saturday needed to cope with snowy circumstances within the Halfpipe.

“The climate was undoubtedly a giant downside,” Mastro stated. “It was actually gradual, particularly in follow. However, in competitors, it went slightly quicker, nevertheless it was actually onerous making an attempt to determine what you need to do, how you need to do it. It is by no means a nasty factor. We love snow. It seems to be like It at all times comes at contest time.”

Whereas Choi stole the present, Mastro had the most effective performances of her X Video games profession. She lastly managed to land her double seat – a trick she is thought for and has struggled for thus lengthy on the X Video games – and briefly held the lead within the competitors earlier than Choi returned.

“It took just a few tries on this competitors to try this, so it is good that we put this one final,” she stated. “What’s subsequent for me is simply to construct on that and begin introducing new tips and placing it collectively. I’m so excited to have the ability to.”

China took the bronze, Xuetong Cai. Final yr’s winner, Japan’s Sina Tomita, didn’t take part within the competitors, whereas Spain’s Keralt Castellet, final yr’s silver medalist, was sixth.

acolbert@aspentimes.com