In honor of the X Games going down last weekend, this week’s Throwback Thursday goes out to Candide Thovex’s legendary win in the Aspen halfpipe in 2003.

This contest went down in history as the moment that halfpipe skiing “got real”, as Candide and C.R. Johnson suddenly started taking their amplitude in the pipe to unheard-of heights. You can tell by the enthusiasm from commentators Mike Douglas and Chris Davenport screaming in the background that this is something they’ve legit never seen before. It’s fair to say that this amplitude would still hold up on in pipe contest today.

Side note: Whenever someone goes really big, I always say to whoever is standing next to me, “Is he skiing or is he base-jumping, Dav?” 100 percent of the time, they have no idea what I’m talking about. Well, now you know.

Watch more classic freeski TBTs here.