You can always rely on Sage Kotsenburg to break up any monotony, and his run had plenty of flair; ducking under one of the rails, popping a frontside 1260 off the toes and even a backside 900 off the heels. A shame, then, that he could get a full run together, and a slam onto his back during his first run was just the start of his problems.

Plenty of his fellow competitors had similar issues; thanks to the number of runs that came apart near the top of the course, this must have set a record for most methods thrown at one event. Stale Sandbech and Alek Oestreng had some good-looking stuff in their routines (the latter’s backside 1260 tailgrab in particular), but neither could get near the podium. Sven Thorgren was looking great on his final attempt, but then almost overshot the landing of the first kicker. His knees gave way, as did any chance of earning a medal.

In the end it was X Games cherry-popper Mons Roisland that made it to the third step. After two sketchy runs, his third also got off to a bad start when he came off a rail early. The Norwegian kept his speed and his nerve, though, kicking into high gear on the kickers with a switch backside triple cork 1620 and frontside double cork 1440 that knocked Willett down into 4th.

1st – Mark McMorris 92.66
2nd – Sebastien Toutant 90.00
3rd – Mons Røisland 86.33
4th – Eric Willett 82.66
5th – Alek Oestreng 77.66
6th – Darcy Sharpe 60.00
7th – Ståle Sandbech 55.66
8th – Sven Thorgren 50.00
9th – Max Parrot 45.00
10th – Sage Kotsenburg 33.00
11th – Torstein Horgmo 26.66
12th – Yuki Kadono 17.33

Check out the rest of the schedule for X Games 2016 here