X Games Aspen 2024 Preview

Along with the classic Slopestyle, Pipe and Big Air competitions, X-Games introduced the Knuckle Huck in 2020 (2019 for snowboarders), which is one of the most unique big comp formats. And this year’s the first time it’s being held for the women as well.

Mac Forehand is going to be defending last year’s gold during Men’s Big Air on Friday night. This one’s going to be a spectacle, with a lot of young guns in the lineup, who’ve shown they’re not scared to pull out unconventional tricks. Pull-backs, butters, sub-7 spins and maybe a quad? We’ll see what happens—definitely not envious of the judges on this one.

Women’s last year’s winner Megan Oldham is unfortunately not returning because of a knee injury. All eyes are going to be on Mathilde Gremaud, who seems unstoppable this season after winning World Cup big airs in Chur and Beijing and taking second to Tess Ledeux at Copper Mountain. Last week’s first place at the Laax Open slopestyle is sure not going to hurt her confidence either.

Colby Stevenson and Kelly Sildaru secured wins in last year’s slopestyle event that went down in heavy snowfall. So far it looks like we’re getting better conditions this time, and if Laax Open showed us anything, it’s that everybody’s more than ready to throw down. Classic event, classic lineup, great skiing guaranteed.

Knuckle Huck is a fan favorite event unique to X Games where riders throw themselves over the big air knuckle all the way down to the parking lot. This is where we’re about to see the most diverse and innovative tricks. It’s the perfect thing to put on when you come home from Saturday night’s party at 5am, you don’t want to sleep through this one. This year’s the first one to feature this event for the ladies as well, and we can’t wait to see what they bring to the table.

If you’ve been following halpipe skiing you don’t need us to tell you that Eileen Gu and Alex Ferreira are going to be the favorites in this event. But things could get interesting here. The Olympic champ Nico Porteous is coming back from an ACL to reclaim his gold from 2022. Hunter Hess could debut his triple from Magma and Nick Goepper might stop by on his way to the Olympics, perhaps with a new hair color.