Daron Rahlves, one of the most decorated US skiers in history, found his way back to the podium by winning his first X Games ski cross gold.
Rahlves, who was dominant in downhill and super G racing, survived a crash-laden race Sunday in Aspen, Colo., by besting Canadian Stanley Hayer and Casey Puckett, last year's gold medal winner.
"I just wanted it. I wanted it really bad. There's a lot of room to make passes," said Rahlves, 34, on the US Ski Team website. "I got up in the lead pretty quick, which is nice, and the whole time I just tried to work it, stay low, and go fast.
"You never know when some guy's going to get in your draft and pass. I had to step it up."
The medal was Rahlves's first in the sport that will make its debut in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
Makes your head spin
She went big when she needed, landing a trick she had never tried in competition."I've been working specifically on that line and amplitude since last spring," said Gretchen Bleiler. "I honed in to land that trick about a week before the X Games."
Bleiler was talking about the cab 7, an aerial switch 720-degree maneuver the 26-year-old Olympian used in her run to take home her third Winter X Games gold in the superpipe Friday before her home crowd.
"It's all about being comfortable with dropping into the pipe with a lot of speed and the line you take," she said. "You have to take an aggressive angle up the wall."
Bleiler put together a line that included her signature crippler 540 (an inverted aerial) and two rotation frontside 720s to win the contest. Australian Torah Bright was second and Olympic gold medalist Kelly Clark of Vermont was third.
Just off the podium were a couple of other Vermonters in Hannah Teter (fourth place) and Lizzy Beerman (sixth place).
During high-profile venues like the X Games, riders tend to reach into their bag of tricks to showcase on the international stage. Clark had been working on a 1080 that she had never tried in competition and almost landed it.
"I had a feeling she was going to try it," said Bleiler. "I didn't see it because I was preparing myself. But there is something to be said for the Olympics and the X Games. In the end, it's what really drives us to push ourselves further.
"There is so much pressure and hype that the level is naturally raised."
Cook warms up
Boston-born Emily Cook, who suffered a devastating injury two weeks before the 2002 Olympics, will be in action this weekend at the Visa Freestyle Challenge, a World Cup event at Deer Valley, Utah.Cook was training for the Salt Lake City Olympics when she missed the sloped landing spot for aerial jumps, landing so hard that she crushed both her feet.
"There was some question whether I'd ever be able to ski again, much less compete in aerials," said Cook from her home in Park City, Utah. "A lot of people are amazed I'm back on the aerial team and competing at 100 percent."
Cook said that in her years of rehabilitation - first for her feet and then for an injured back - the sport progressed a great deal.
"The whole game is the degree of difficulty [in the tricks]," she said, "and that's the biggest thing I was able to do - get my degree of difficulty up."
Wild rides
Riders have a shot at a wild-card spot in the March US Open when the Main Event snowboard competition touches down at Vermont's Mount Snow for the first time Sunday. Riders will tackle a three-feature mini-slopestyle terrain park setup in Mount Snow's Vermontster park. "This is a grass-roots event that has grown into a major competition," said events director Greg Fisher. The series final will be held at Waterville Valley Feb. 10 . . . The Oakley Pink Rail Jam is part of Boarding for Breast Cancer Sunday at Waterville Valley. Saturday's Man of Steel Rail Jam at Pats Peak in Henniker, N.H., is open to women, too.Globe correspondent Tony Chamberlain contributed to this report.
