X Games 2026 Big Air: Zero spins, triple corks and savagery

This year’s X Big Air went down in tough conditions, with near constant snowfall presenting challenges to both speed and visibility. This circumstance kept the contest from being the absolute mindfuck of send-fests that it has often been in years past, making it just a “normal” absolute send-fest this time around.

The First

The first run was a blur of triple corks, missed grabs and crazy crashes. Hunter Henderson and Mac Forehand both missed the grab on their switch triples, while Ben Barclay took a triple 1800 attempt straight to his head, and somehow bounced up entirely unscathed. Elias Syrjä did a switch butter double bio 12 safety—a crazy trick to be doing in these conditions—while Tormod Frostad swerved through a nose butter double bio 1440 safety.

When the snow settled on the first round, it was the triples in podium contention: Konnor Ralph in third with a left triple 1800 mute and a benchmark score of 85; Dylan Deschamps in second with a huge left triple 1620 safety that looked like a setup trick for a quad; and defending champ Luca Harrington in the lead, outrageously skiing in a t-shirt, with a flawless switch left triple cork 1800 esco, stomped like nobody’s business for a 92.33 and the provisional lead.

The second

Run Two saw some wild, and in this critic’s opinion controversial, changes to the leaderboard. The judges hooked up Hunter Henderson with an 88.33 for his switch left triple 1800 opp mute, giving love for the difficult grab while overlooking the hands down on the landing. Ben Barclay redeemed his scary crash from Run 1 with a clean double 14 mute, while Konnor Ralph had a scare when he lost control of a triple 18 and fell like a cat out of a third-story window, somehow getting his feet back under him for the landing. Elias Syrjä took his switch butter bio to 1440 but scrubbed the landing, and Dylan Deschamps served up a monster quad 1800 but sat down hard on the landing and didn’t improve.

The last four hits of Run 2 brought serious heat to this cold night in Aspen. Tormod Frostad did his left carve butter double bio 1440 safety about as clean as it can be done, and the judges rewarded his creative approach with a 93.66 to put him in the lead. Birk Ruud served up a flawless switch left triple 1980 mute that surprisingly only scored 89.66, then Mac Forehand blasted into first place with a score of 96.00 for a switch triple 2160 mute—performed perfectly and grabbed forever, but seemingly a clear case of “spin more, get higher score.”

Driving the point home, Luca Harrington ended Run 2 with an absolutely flawless switch left triple 1980 esco, spinning 180 degrees less than Forehand, but with an incredibly difficult grab that only he is doing. Apparently, spinning more is better, so Luca scored “only” a 94.66 to move into second place.

The Third

After a lengthy weather delay, the third and final run brought only small changes to the leaderboard—namely, Dylan Deschamps and his huge quad 1800 safety bumping Tormod Frostad out of third place. Most everyone else—Elias Syrjä, Tormod and Luca Harrington—sought to add spins but were unable to improve, while Konnor Ralph and Birk Ruud were stymied by speed and shut down their trick engines early. The highlight of the final jumps was not one, but two classy zero spins from Ben Barclay and Mac Forehand.

The Format

Leave it to X Games to eternally keep making tweaks to their format—they still haven’t found the worse possible one yet! Jokes aside, this year’s 25-minute jam session devolved into a three-jump, best-trick-wins format that simply didn’t seem to bring out the best results. Granted, that was largely the fault of the weather, and not the structure of the comp itself.

When you’re used to the “3 jumps, best 2 count” format that’s now the World Cup standard, a “best trick wins” comp seems to boil down to who can add the most additional 180s to their trick—a less exciting and less diverse showcase of tricks and talent.

But hey—as the only major contest that’s not beholden to the FIS rulebook, you gotta give X Games some props for the will to keep on changing their format, year after year. It’s basically a running gag at this point. They might as well keep on going with it—you never know, one day they might happen on something good!