On January 25, local snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott finished fifth in the Jeep Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle at X Games Aspen. 

When asked if she was satisfied with her results, Sadowski-Synnott replied “I am, given how tricky it was dealing with the new format. It was a big lesson for me in competing and adapting to changes like that. So I’m happy with that aspect”. 

Using the new jam format, in which riders are ranked on overall impression rather than scored for individual runs, the eight finalists were able to complete four runs within the 35-minute competition window. “I think the new jam format is a great idea in theory, it gives us more runs and more chances to show a greater variety of tricks to do in different runs. However, testing it out at X Games was a bit confusing as we didn’t get to see scores, just rankings. 

“For Big Air I feel like it worked really well where instead of just two tricks you could show the judges more and get rewarded for having a variety of spins and directions,” said Sadowski-Synnott. The three rail, four jump course proved challenging with the entire field struggling to put down clean runs on their first attempt. With a stumble on the second rail of her first run and then a crash on the first jump of the second, Sadowski-Synnott was sitting in eighth place midway through the competition. 

“She landed a new trick for the first time in competition – a 1080 (three full rotations in the air) in the Snowboard Big Air,” explained Alex Kerr, communications manager at Snow Sports NZ. Pushing to move up into a podium spot on her fourth and final run, Sadowski-Synnott went for a 1080 but couldn’t stick the landing and would finish the day in fifth place. 

“Coming into X Games as one to watch versus the underdog last year taught me a lot and I felt the pressure. The overall atmosphere was heavy, definitely the most hectic week I’ve ever had, doing both Big Air and Slopestyle with a four-jump course,” she concluded.