With snowfall all day long, fog coming up and a 2 hrs reschedule, the girls didn’t have an easy job yesterday night battling it out for the snowboard pipe title at the Winter X Games Europe in Tignes.

The crowd did their best to cheer the riders on (of course the loudest noise was directed to local heroine Sophie Rodriguez, who placed 6th) but after the second run conditions had gone so sketchy that runs couldn’t be stomped anymore.

Kelly Clark (USA) seems to have had a nose for it and started with a fairly mellow run for her standards – still scoring a whooping 92 points, mind you – but it wouldn’t be the Kelly we know if she didn’t step it up even more. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to land her 10 in either of the following runs, and so it was the first that earned her the 4th X Games gold medal in the end.

Following close on her feet with every run was fellow countrywomen Hannah and also former Olympian Hannah Teter, who impressed with height and techinque. It wasn’t quite enough to knock the pipe goddess off her throne though and so Hannah had to settle for silver.

Spanish wonderwomen Queralt Castellet had some nice tricks up her sleeve as well, among them back to back 9s that secured her first X Games medal ever.

One of the only girls going inverted was once again Norwegian Kjersti Buaas, who without doubt sported the most style and the biggest smile and placed 5th.

Now we’re waiting excitedly for the rest of the snowboard finals later today, so stayed tuned!

RESULTS

1. Kelly Clark
2. Hannah Teter
3. Queralt Castellet
4. Kaitlyn Farrington
5. Kjersti Oestgaard Buaas
6. Sophie Rodriguez
7. Elena Hight
8. Soko Yamaoka
9. Ellery Hollingsworth
10. Ursina Haller
11. Kelly Marren
12. Gretchen Bleiler