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Canada’s strong X Games showing continues with Beaulieu-Marchand bronze

Jan 28, 2017 | 2:00 PM

ASPEN, Colo. — Canada’s strong showing at the X Games continued on Saturday when Alex Beaulieu-Marchand captured bronze in the men’s ski slopestyle.

The Quebec City native scored a 92.00 on his first run, which included a switch double bio 1260 and a double bio 1260, to hold onto third place and his first X Games medal. Norway’s Oystein Braaten won the event with a 94.33 on his second run and McRae Williams on the United States, took silver with a best run score of 93.33.

The 22-year-old Beaulieu-Marchand was coming off a third place finish at a Dew Tour event in Breckenridge, Colo., in December.

“This is my first X Games podium. Mentally, I was stronger than I’ve ever been,” he said. “I think that was the missing piece in years past. I now see that I can be successful. I had no doubt at the start that I was going to land my run … I’m really happy with where I’m at mentally, and ready for more success.”

Evan McEachran of Oakville, Ont., finished eighth.

Beaulieu-Marchand has had a rough time at the Aspen X Games event in recent years, breaking his left collarbone just before last year’s competition and tearing his left ACL on the final jump of his second run in 2015. His best finish at Aspen was in 2014 when he placed fifth.

Canadian teammates Max Parrot and Mark McMorris earned gold and bronze respectively in the men’s snowboard big air competition on Friday night.

It wasn’t an easy week for Parrot, who had a hard time dealing with the pressure of repeating as the event winner.

“X Games for me is like the Olympics every year so it’s the most important contest,” Parrot said. “I didn’t miss one minute of practice this week and I just rode the best I could all week and ended up doing well.”

Parrot, from Bromont, Que., beat Norway’s Marcus Kleveland by a single point 83 to 82 in the total standings to take gold. McMorris, from Regina, was third with 73.

The 22-year-old Parrot credits a new trick that he learned two years ago in Whistler, B.C. — the quad underflip 1620 — as the difference in his victory.

“I wanted to do this trick last year at the X Games but when I was going for it on my last run I already knew I was winning so I didn’t have to do it,” Parrot said. “But this year I knew I would have to do it if I wanted to win so I didn’t really have the choice.

“It’s definitely not an easy trick, because otherwise I would have done this trick many times in the last two years.”

Also on Friday, Calgary’s Noah Bowman clinched bronze in the men’s superpipe final with a best run of 71 points and Cody Matechuk of Cochrane, Alta., earned bronze in men’s snow bikecross.

Parrot continues his X Games on Sunday with the slopestyle final before leaving for Austria on Tuesday.

The Canadian Press