The first Winter X Games were held in 1997, giving snowboard halfpipe a major televised stage alongside other new-style snow events. Early contests helped standardize judging and pushed riders to link bigger airs and cleaner landings as a complete run.
In 1997, Todd Richards won the first men’s halfpipe title at the Winter X Games. His win is often used as an early benchmark for how quickly halfpipe snowboarding moved from style-focused runs toward higher difficulty and stronger consistency.
At the 1997 Winter X Games, Barrett Christy won gold in both women’s big air and women’s slopestyle. Her early dominance highlighted the depth of women’s snowboarding talent and helped keep women’s events central to the Winter X Games program.
In 1998, Ross Powers won the men’s halfpipe at the Winter X Games. Back-to-back titles and repeat podiums in this period showed that halfpipe performance was becoming a season-long competitive discipline, not just a one-off showcase.
At the 2000 Winter X Games, Todd Richards won gold in men’s SuperPipe (the large halfpipe format used at X Games). The event’s bigger walls and higher speeds increased the reward for amplitude (height above the lip) and made falls more costly, shaping how riders built safer but harder runs.
In 2000, Norway’s Stine Brun Kjeldaas won women’s SuperPipe at the Winter X Games. Her victory signaled that women’s halfpipe was becoming more international and helped raise expectations for trick difficulty in women’s finals.
In 2001, Danny Kass won men’s SuperPipe at the Winter X Games, beating favorites including Todd Richards and Ross Powers. The result showed how quickly podium contenders could change as new tricks, new styles, and improved pipe construction reshaped what judges rewarded.
In January 2002, J.J. Thomas won men’s Snowboard SuperPipe at Winter X Games VI in Aspen. Shaun White took silver, marking an early moment in White’s rise as halfpipe riding entered a more technical, spin-heavy period.
In 2005, Finland’s Antti Autti became the first non-U.S. rider to win men’s SuperPipe gold at the Winter X Games. Reports highlight his back-to-back 1080s as a defining feature of the winning run, reflecting how multiple high-rotation spins were becoming necessary to contend for gold.
By 2016, Snowboard Big Air had become a headline X Games event in Aspen, featuring a large jump designed for very high-difficulty tricks. Coverage of the 2016 contest emphasized triple-cork spins (off-axis flips combined with spins), showing that Big Air was pushing into a new technical tier.
In 2017, women’s Snowboard Big Air debuted at X Games Aspen, expanding top-level big-jump competition for women on the same main stage as men. Hailey Langland won the first women’s Big Air gold in Aspen, demonstrating that women’s Big Air was quickly moving toward double-cork rotations and higher risk management.
At X Games Aspen 2018, Snowboard Big Air and Snowboard SuperPipe were both centerpiece events, reflecting how the sport had split into two high-profile styles: jump-focused progression and halfpipe run-building. The published medal lists show Maxence Parrot winning men’s Big Air, Anna Gasser winning women’s Big Air, Ayumu Hirano winning men’s SuperPipe, and Chloe Kim winning women’s SuperPipe.
X Games Snowboard Halfpipe and Big Air History (1997-2018)