Best OF Men’s Ski Slopestyle | X Games Aspen 2025

A beautiful afternoon here in the heart of the Rockies. We're at Buttermilk here at Aspen Snowmass as it plays host once again to X Games Aspen 2025 as we get set to tee off with men's ski slope style playoffs and final. Here comes our other X Games rookie here in slope style. He was an alternate in 2022 as well as last year. He finds himself in the mix here today from Helena, Montana. We bring in Connor Ralph. Gonna have to say he's got the best looking skis out there on course today. I might be a little bit biased though as those are the line Tom Walsh pros. Spinning real good up top that back four out so smooth. Oh, there finishing that switch to on into the cave fed. Getting things going on the jump. He's going 16 up there, spinning to the right. Judges always looking for a variety of cork rotations, bios and left and right spinnings. So anything like that is gonna add to your scores. He's going gigantic on the bottom jump. Two rookies to start it off in two. Look at his reaction, his reaction says it all. Ralph, an X Games rookie comes out and goes for it. This is just the elimination mode. He's going X Games mode out there. Watch this, good rails, steezy up top, gets to the end of every rail and then it's into the jumps where he really starts to wow us. Spinning so much to the right, then going with the left side rotations following that and that bottom jump, gigantic. Here, switch off the middle jump, wraps it up, gets that around a 16, super smooth and then it's this bottom one. Just look at this amplitude. So many flips, so many spins, full triple cork, comes around, landing gear is down. The Aspen Valley Airport would be excited with the way he set that one down. Okay, so Luka Harrington put up an 85.33. What's this one gonna be for Connor Ralph into the high 80s with an 88.33? Taking our first look at Mac Forehand here. He owns two pieces of hardware here at Slope Stylist, silver and a bronze. Oh, big spin out of that one. So Mac Forehand, see him riding all the time at Park City. He's a nine to four kind of guy. There's the big cork onto that one. Gets things spinning, 16 to get things going. Here he's going, switch right side, going for that 14.40 with the safety grab. Love the landing when he can land just off that left shoulder, super smooth into the trip. There we go. There's his family there, Ray and Ann Marie at the bottom watching Mac Forehand. Absolutely put one down to get things started with the triple cork at the bottom. So you got your top three scores right now, 88.33, 87 and an 85.33. We'll take a look at some replays and then we play the weighted game to see what the judges think of Mac Forehand's first attempt. Switch cork, 6.30. So smooth coming around, gets that back to, if anything, it was the top rail feature. Popped out to switch, maybe came off just a shy bit early on it and had to go to switch when he wanted something else. But this jump run, 16.20 to the left, then the right side switch, 14.40. Watch this landing, no hands down here at the bottom, the switch triple cork. All right, so what's it going to be on the score? Remember, top five transfer on here from playoffs into the final. We're into the 90s time, a 91.66. Mac Forehand puts himself in that top spot. This is Alex Hall competing in four different events out here this weekend. He got knuckle hug here in slope style. Right after this, he's got to go over to street style and then he's got big air. Yeah, Alex, so technical on the rails. Switch to sev, swap, and then pretzeling. Just a guy that spends so much time on his skis. Oh, the hand drag. So kind of what that feature was designed for at Rainbows and then ends up as a down tube, doing that hand drag and then just grinded to back two out. And here we get into the spins. Switch right side with that revert there. He's switching things up for us. A big trick on the last jump switch. Gets into that off Japan grab, 14 Alex Hall. That's how you get something going. Some really creative, unique rail tricks up top. Then gives us some very unique jumps and some big spins. It's that combination for me, I think, that the judges really like. He's not afraid to do technical tricks, but he's also gonna balance the viewing, you know, the viewer watching his run with this. Little hand drag, then grip back to sev out. That's not a lot of spinning, but it's scary to do and adds so much flavor as he spins out of this one. And then, whoop, little body revert, does a little yoga morning session to get ready for that one. Here at the bottom, spins, just maintains the grab. You see how casually he just skied into the corral? He just posted up right next to Kristen, looking at the monitor and like, okay, I'm gonna look at my replays. I'm going back up top. So he's only gonna get a 76.66. Plenty of big air and slope style success in this man's career, but not here at the X Games when it came to slope style. His first medal was last year and it was gold. And he's looking to repeat that here in 2025. And if anything, that stat kind of just speaks to the way Burke Rood skis. He's not gonna come out here and do a medium run looking for a medal. Like, it's either gold or last place. Like, he is going to go for the hardest stuff all the time, and you can already see it with these big 450s and 450s out there. Smooth through, maybe off a tad bit early, but gets through that full rail section and into this where he really excels. Crazy spinning 16 at the top. Into that switch right side, 1440. So gets the grab right above the binding on that one. Look for a big rotation here to the finish. Okay, switch 18 with the tail, I believe. Reaching back, wrapping up. Seeing a lot of big spins. And that's the reason I think Alex Hall maybe wasn't as rewarded on his run as we thought. A lot of these other athletes are adding an 1800. That's five full rotations into the run. Alex had a 16 and a 14. I know these numbers are a lot, but some of his tricks are super creative and super smooth. But when you're just getting out spun at some point, the judges have to reward this stuff. Another look at Burke Rood's final one here. Look at that wrap. I mean, it's a full 900 before he's even reaching for the ski, but then once he gets it, we call that capping the tail grab. When you get all the way back on the tail, holds it for that final full 900 of that 1800. I mean, I used to do switch nines and forward nines as part of my slopestyle run. He's doing them together as one trick. So that's gonna only be good enough for fourth here with your defending gold medalist, so Burke Rood with that 86. That's basically gonna put him on the bubble contention right there as well. Max Moffitt sitting in that number seven position right now. So again, here in playoffs, the big change in 2025, you just make the five cut to get into the final. He is two spots on the outside here with that 68.66 from run number one. Some Max Moffitt supporters here on the social media side things. And the format's interesting because I was coming into this saying, do you really wanna throw all your best tricks in the playoffs or save them for finals? But the level is so high today, you absolutely can't hold anything back if you wanna qualify in the top five of this field. These are the 10 best free ski slopestyles skiers in the world. Oh, I love that switch court 450. The way he does it, grabs that safety, sort of pauses it out, carving that left side double 1440 with the safety grab. Now wrapping up, maybe letting go of that tail grab a bit early on this right side 16. Oh, but there another 16 to the right there to finish it off and you hear him exclaim. I'm gonna say, do you hear the reaction on that last hit as he makes his way to the corral? I mean, the bubble right now is an 86. Oh, this is gonna get tough as we watch the next few guys drop. This is gonna get very tough. So cool to hear on that switch for stomps that landing. You hear the high impact of it. We're hearing him all throughout the course. The exclamation at the end, just let's see this grab. This is what I was watching for. He holds it for so long. It's sort of that crossing stale Cuban grab. Just hard to tell if he let go of it early. Here's that Japan. Maybe let's go with that one a bit early, but look at that landing. Full shoulder swag, arm to the sides. Put him in X Games mode for that one. So 75, so no, that's not even gonna improve. It'll improve the score, but not the position. So he is not gonna crack into that top five. Andre Righetti, two-time gold medalist in this event. He's at the top five as of right now, sitting in the number four spot, but he too would love some breathing room. Gets things going with that transfer up top. Switch to backside 450 out. Real smooth there, so great through the rails. And then watch this takeoff. Watch his eyes. That's the blender. It's like he's mixing up blended margaritas for the crew, looking over the left shoulder, spinning over the right. So, so hard to keep your eyes down the field on that one. There's that left side double cork here in the final jump. But we see another 1620 or all the way to 1800. Andre Righetti gets spinning all the way around. Switch, double bio, diving forward off that lift, wrapping it up. Now, did he get the grab? I need, they're spinning so much. I need all the slow-mo replays I can get to analyze these tricks and the grabs, because there's so much to it as we look through the rails up top. Transfer was better than last time. A little bit more centered on the rail. Judges really want to see you grinding the end of the rail with it under your feet, well-balanced. They don't want to see you coming off any bit early in that grab. I mean, all the way out there. Hard to miss him out there today with that jacket on as he dives forward. Let's see, gets the safety, slides it, maybe a little bit Cindy grab, we would call it, where you go safety and Tindy, but wrapping it up there all the way over. I mean, 1800, five full rotations. We're seeing a lot of spinning here today. Ford's pre-run. Oh, he's into the 90s. Andrew jumps up into that number two position. So three scores into the 90s now. So he's one point behind Luca Harrington, but I mentioned before the run that he wanted some breathing room and he just got it. He just moved up from position four to two, but we turn things over to Colby Stevenson. Two gold medals in this event. The last one coming here in Aspen in 2023. So needs to put everything down here with skiing really well in practice. Spoke to him, he was so excited about this course. So just needs to get the speed right. We've seen a lot of athletes flying a little too far as he does that lip four from that other takeoff. Only athlete doing it. There's that nose butter. No issue for Colby Stevenson. The nose butter, double 16, where we saw him lose the ski in run one. Right side, 1440. Down here on the money booter for the crowd here in Aspen. Wrapping up the switch, 1,800. Colby Stevenson with the pressure on. Run two of two after having one of the craziest crashes I've ever seen in run one on that nose butter. Did you hear what he just said? He said, it's so hard to see up there. Yeah, we've got some cloud cover out here right now. We haven't even talked about visibility issues. And they do have some dye lines, some blue dye on the landing so you can see a little bit. But when the clouds are out and the snow and the sky are the exact same color as you can see in this shot here, it's very hard to tell when you're flipping and spinning that much, what is up and down. And if you lose track of what's up and down, you're as good as gone. And there Colby reaches back. How long did he get the grab on that final hit? If they can slow it down and the judges see that he captured that one. There's a giant replay monitor right next to us that they can look at the replays as we call them and go through the score. But he was very nonchalant about that. As we look at our top qualifier for playoffs, it's Luka Harrington, an X Games rookie. X Games rookie, but absolutely going for it. Lionel Ferrell saying he's his spirit animal there. And I think we can all agree with this. This guy is a Tasmanian devil. If he were to be any animal with the amount of spinning we're seeing on course today from him. Right side going, pretzeling out again. So sticking to the run we've seen throughout the event. What's he gonna spin on this final jump? Going gigantic, switch, triple cork, 16, 20. Both hands reaching over on the side and the smile on his face says it all. Welcome to Winter X Games, Luka Harrington. You are here. He's definitely the spirit animal of anyone that took one of the rookies there on next bets before this competition got started. I hope somebody puts some money on this guy because he is gonna pay out big. This is the unique one. So this is the Alex Hall inspired. Does that pretzel. Look at the grab holding it and then putting it down. And then to finish things off, just watch this grab. It's one hand on the safety. Then he reaches across the body. No one else is doing that. Just reaches across, has so much hang time. I mean, there's like not much I see there to critique on at all. That run was incredible. And a 93.33, he jumps to the top spot. Picking up where he left off in the playoffs. That puts him in the driver's seat with one more round of runs to go. By the way, we keep talking about he's a rookie. The only other rookie to win men's ski slope style gold. Colby Stevenson. Colby Stevenson here in Aspen in 2020. Wow. Giving a shout out to mom, by the way. That was some of the fans from the hometown back in New Zealand weighing in on social media and watching at home. What a huge day for Luca Harrington, the X Games rookie, top qualifier in the playoffs. And after round one of two here in the final, finds himself in the top spot. He's a rookie, but he gets to go out with a victory lap. Unbelievable. Luca Harrington, X Games rookie, as we look at his brother there in the crowd going nuts. I mean, first time at X Games, gets in as an alternate and he's here to stay. 18 different gold medalists, 26 gold medals handed out in this discipline in the history of the X Games. You want to talk about parity in the field. And as I said earlier, the only other rookie to win men's ski slope style gold was Colby Stevenson here back in 2020. And just, it's this, it's that final trick. He's doing that Esco grab, the only one reaching across for both those safety grabs. I mean, it is unique all to him and you stand out and that's how you get the big score. So Luca just having fun to come into your first X Games. As an alternate, you were on the alternate list for this event. He was only scheduled to be in big air. I hope somebody put money on this because his odds were really good. You could have made good money on this kid. Yeah, someone's claiming spirit animal right now, jumping up and down on the couch from Dex bed. Just a triple, just for the fun of it, just to celebrate with everybody as he comes to the corral. Friends and family cheering him on, all his New Zealand friends, his brother, family, everybody down here, just excited for Luca Harrington. You come in off the alternate list. Your first to go, you put down a monster second run. You get to ski last in the final and your first run was good enough to hold up for gold. Congratulations, 20-year-old Luca Harrington and welcome to the X Games, sir. But when it's all said and done, it's Mack Forehand walking away with his fifth overall X Games medal, third here in Slope Style. Andre Regetli taking home the silver, but it's Luca Harrington, the X Games rookie, fresh off the alternate list and straight into X Games gold.