Voisin takes slopestyle gold at X Games
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2018, file photo, Maggie Voisin skis during her first run in the women’s slopestyle finals in Snowmass, Colo. The 15-year-old freeskier bailed out of a rail trick, then slammed into another rail, got her skis and boots tangled up and fractured her ankle. The youngest person to qualify for the 2014 U.S. Olympic team would not get her chance to become the youngest person to compete for the 2014 U.S. Olympic team. ‘’It definitely lit a fire under me for the last four years,’’ says Voisin, now 19 and still at the top of the slopestyle world.(Anna S…
Maggie Voisin was all smiles Thursday as she skied powder with friends and family in the morning and then greeted the public for the annual ski with Maggie day in the afternoon. (c) Brian Schott
ASPEN, Colorado — Whitefish’s Maggie Voisin made history on Saturday, becoming the first American woman ever to win the slopestyle skiing competition at the X Games.
The 19-year-old phenom took the gold medal thanks to the first of her three runs, which scored 92.33.
Voisin now has earned three medals in her X Games career.
She grabbed a silver medal in slopestyle in her 2014 X Games debut before picking up a bronze in big air skiing last year.
Voisin also made a bit of history with the latter performance, as she was the first American woman ever to make the podium in big air.
“I can hardly breathe to be honest,” she told ESPN’s Tom Wallisch after Saturday’s victory. “I’ve been dreaming of this day a really long time.”
Voisin’s next event will be one for which she’s qualified once but in which she’s never competed — the Olympics.
She made the U.S. Olympic team in 2014 but suffered a broken fibula on the third day of training in Sochi, Russia.
Voisin qualified for the upcoming Winter Olympics at a U.S. Grand Prix stop in Aspen on Jan. 13 and is among the favorites to make the podium in the slopestyle competition in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Opening ceremonies for the 2018 Games are set for Feb. 9.