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Canadians take eight medals at X Games

Canada's Mark McMorris successfully defended his X Games slopestyle gold medal from 2012 in Aspen, Colorado, this past weekend, this time facing an all-star field that included American Shaun White.
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Canada's Mark McMorris successfully defended his X Games slopestyle gold medal from 2012 in Aspen, Colorado, this past weekend, this time facing an all-star field that included American Shaun White.

McMorris also accomplished his win with a score of 98.00 — the highest in X Games history for the sport, and one of the best snowboard scores of all time.

He actually had the event in the bag with a 94.66 after his first two runs, with teammate Maxence Parrot sitting second with a 90.00. Rather than rest on his laurels, he made his victory lap count.

"Coming into today I was tired but I was so excited that I overcame everything," he said. "I was able to land a run that I've always dreamed of. On my last run I did a cab 1260 double cork, which I've been working on quite a bit. It was an amazing day. I couldn't really ask for anything better."

Parrot, who was the youngest competitor at 18, threw a backside triple cork 1440 into his run.

Canada's Sebastian Toutant just missed the eight-man superfinal in 10th place.

In the women's slopestyle, Spencer O'Brien — first at the World Championships the previous week in Quebec — placed third overall behind American Jamie Anderson and Sarka Pancochova of the Czech Republic.

McMorris's silver medal in the big air was behind Torstein Horgmo of Norway and ahead of Norway's Stale Sanbech. Canada's Sebastian Toutant was sixth in that competition.

Canada picked up a fourth snowboard medal at X Games in the street event, with Louis-Felix Paradis taking the win.

In the women's ski halfpipe, Canada had another double podium with Roz Groenewoud and Megan Gunning finishing second and third. It was an off-day for the men's halfpipe team with none of the Canadians making it through to the final. Noah Bowman just missed the top eight in ninth place overall while Matt Margetts was 11th and Mike Riddle 14th.

Kaya Turski and Dara Howell picked up Canada's third double podium of the weekend. Whistler skier Yuki Tsubota, who was only invited to the X Games the previous week, was right in the mix and finished sixth overall, less than two points back of the podium.