Burke wins fourth WX SuperPipe gold
Barely recovered from shoulder surgery, Sarah Burke gets her fourth WX gold
Sarah Burke won her fourth Winter X SuperPipe gold medal Thursday night under the lights at Winter X 15 at Buttermilk, Colo. Winter X rookie Brita Sigourney placed second, and Roz Groenewoud rounded out the podium.
Burke, who qualified in the last position for Thursday night's final, earned the highest score -- a 91.33 -- for her second run, which included back-to-back flairs, a 720 and a cork 900.
"It feels great," Burke said, "and all it took was nine hard days of training." Recovering from a shoulder surgery she underwent this past summer after a disappointing 2010 contest season (she placed sixth in Slopestyle and SuperPipe at Winter X last year), Burke wasn't cleared by her doctor to ski halfpipe until less than two weeks before Thursday night's contest.
But the biggest moment of the night might have been the third and final run from reigning champion Jen Hudak. After falling on her first run and taking a conservative second run that wound up earning her fifth place, Hudak dropped into the pipe determined to defend her title. When her skis touched down on her final hit, the crowd had already begun to celebrate, but then some slough in the flat bottom took her off her feet, robbing her of what would have been the first 1080 by a woman in a ski SuperPipe competition. "I've never felt so good mentally and physically and have that happen. I landed that 10 and was telling myself, 'Just make sure you ride away' just when I thought I had, something took me out," Hudak said afterward. "I went into this day wanting to do that run more than anything -- that I accomplished, and I did it for my dad, who's home in Connecticut recovering from a bone marrow transplant that he underwent in November. Though I'm frustrated it didn't yield the result I was hoping for, I am proud of my skiing."
Trevor Brown Jr./ESPN Action SportsSarah Burke is officially back in the game. For Sigourney, a 21-year-old college student at UC Davis, her first Winter X appearance couldn't have gone any better. "I came here just wanting to have fun. I didn't want to put too much pressure on myself," she said. "And that's exactly what I did."
Groenewoud, who won the 2010 Grand Prix in December, was the only competitor Friday night who did a switch trick. "I'm disappointed with how the night went because I had a lot of new tricks I was working on that I didn't get to bring out," she said. "But I'm happy to be on the podium."
Check full results here.
ESPN Conversations
ALSO SEE
Winter X 15 is over and out, but read up on news, athlete profiles and event info year-round in the
X Games Blog »
WX15 Results »
Miss out on WX15? Fear not: Winter X Europe hits Tignes, France, March 16-18. Euro info »
Winter X Games 15
- WX15 homepage
- WX15 Video Hub

- Free mobile app
- TV broadcast schedule
- ESPN3.com live video schedule
- Competition schedule
- Real Snow: Vote now!
- Confirmed athlete list
- Spectator info
- Where to watch WX15
- Live chat archive
- X Games Environmentality
- Soundtrack to the X Games
Day One: Thursday
- Women's Ski Slope Finals: Turski wins

- Snowmobile Freestyle Finals: Bodin wins

- Women's Ski Pipe Finals: Burke wins

Day Two: Friday
- Men's SNB Slope Elims: Seb Toutant

- Men's SNB Slope Elims: Shaun White

- SNB Big Air Finals: Horgmo wins

- Men's Ski Superpipe Finals: Rolland wins

- Snowboard Best Method Finals: Lago Gold
- SMB Speed & Style Finals: Parsons wins

- FrendsVision: Methodology

Day Three: Saturday
- Men's Ski Big Air Finals: Schlopy wins

- Men's Ski SlopeStyle: Carlson Gold

- Women's SNB X Finals: Jacobellis wins

- Men's SNB X: Baumgartner wins

- SNB Street Finals: Sauve wins

- Women's SNB Pipe Finals: Clark's season
Day Four: Sunday
- Snowboard SuperPipe: White four-peats

- Women's Skier X: Serwa wins

- Men's Skier X: Teller wins

- Women's SlopeStyle: Rukajarvi wins

- Mono Skier X: Josh Dueck wins

- Snowmobile SnoCross: Hibbert five-peats

- Snowboard SlopeStyle: Toutant wins

- Snowmobile Best Trick: Boudin wins

Winter X 15 Photos
- WX15 Day 1 in Photos

- WX15 Day 2 in Photos

- WX15 Day 3 in Photos

- WX15 Day 4 in Photos

- WX15: Best of Photos

- Shaun White: Post Olympics

- Winter X: Over the years

- WX15: What to watch for
- Slope Queen: Kaya Turski

- Waiting for Superman: Blair Morgan
- What you won't see in Skiing at WX15
- Tricky business: Snowmobile Freestyle
- Nature v. nurture: Sibling rivalry
- Over The Radar: Bobby Brown Profile

- Snocross: Beating Tucker Hibbert
- Dream Run: Snowboard Superpipe

- Being Torah Bright

- Freestyle free-for-all

