ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
The post-podium interview had a special guest after the women’s ski SuperPipe on Friday night.
Canadian former Olympic gold medalist Cassie Sharpe placed on the X Games podium for four straight years from 2017 to 2021 — including a win in 2018 — before taking a three-year hiatus to raise her child. In her first year back, she reclaimed her throne.
“I can’t even describe how special it is,” Sharpe said. “My mom’s over here crying, calling my dad. My husband’s just on the phone with his best friend. It’s not only for me. I’m just so proud of myself that I can prove it to everybody, that it wasn’t just a fluke, that I came back and came back swinging.
Sharpe posted the third-best score through the playoff qualifiers, but posted the top run of the finals in her first trip down the pipe, stomping a 1080 flying 12 feet above the lip of the pipe for her fifth and final hit of the run.
Her daughter joined her in her arms for the TV broadcast interview, playing with her mom’s new hardware.
The silver medalist, 21-year-old Fanghui Li from China, actually posted the highest-scoring run of the event with a 91 flat in the playoff. But that score was washed out ahead of the finals, where she scored a top of 86.66 — still earning her first X Games medal. Sharpe’s compatriot Amy Fraser took a bronze medal, also placing third in last year’s SuperPipe. Zoe Atkin scored an 89 flat in the playoffs, the second-best run in the entire event, but missed the podium with a 68 in the finals.
But the circumstances shook out in Sharpe’s favor, who no-doubt had a strong showing in her first year back.
Sharpe said that she briefly considered retirement after having her baby, but watched the first X Games since she stepped back and knew she wasn’t done.
“I had a gut feeling and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m not done yet. I want to be back out there with the girls,’” Sharpe said.
And now, her ambitions are even higher — she wants to take a trip to Italy next year.
“Definitely shooting for the Olympics,” Sharpe said.
The field on Friday night was culled a bit after Eileen Gu went down hard during Street Style earlier in the day and Hanna Faulhaber left the event early.
Faulhaber, a Basalt native who has shown flashes of rising to the absolute top of the sport, caught the lip with her right ski on her second hit of her first run. She executed her next trick but then skied out the rest of the way. She was helped off the venue without putting any weight on her left leg and returned later on crutches.
She tore her right knee last season and crashed in her return to World Cup competition at Copper Mountain in December. She told the Aspen Daily News on Friday morning that she also took a big hit in training in early January, and was planning to take a risk-averse approach in the X Games.
“I would have loved to come in with a few more tricks than I had at the World Cup, but just with the back-to-back falls and just not being able to have the training time, I think unfortunately this one will be me holding back a little bit still,” Faulhaber said on Friday morning. “I’ve just got to be cautious and as much as X Games means to me, we have the Olympics coming up so I just don’t want to have another major injury and want to make sure that I’m feeling good and ready to go and confident before I start getting back to where I was last year.”