X Games gold

Posted February 4th, 2010 by Jenny Jones

As I headed over to Aspen at the beginning of the week I was feeling excited and nervous about competing in the X Games. How was I going to top last year’s experience (which was one of the best contest moments of my career)?  I decided to adopt the outlook of this being a whole new year, a fresh challenge and, as your Mum always says when you’re a kid, “You can only try your best and that’s all you can do”.

We had quite a few days to practise before the contest, which is good because the X Games course is not for the faint hearted and this year was no exception. As I checked out the course for the first time I was overwhelmed by all the features and how incredibly close the jumps are set. This does not show on the TV but it feels like you are landing one jump and already riding up the take off of the next jump with not a lot of time to think. In response, I did my best to break down the course and tackle it bit by bit.

Second day of practice and I had a bit of a set back as I over shot the whole of jump number 2 and had to go straight to the medics. I was diagnosed with bone bruising in my knee and a pinched meniscus which needs regular treatment and at least 2-6 weeks of rest…..hummmm.
So the next three days of practice were going to be tough. It was a case of managing the swelling as much as I could with loads of ice, arnica, anti inflams, physio, compression etc. It wasn’t the best for my confidence but I just had to get on with it.

So…the qualifiers. My boot laces broke and I had to DIY them with gaffer tape and hope it held. I rode the qualifiers and just put down a safe run; it was good enough to get me through in 3rd to the finals and I was super happy. This finals had some of the top girls competing like Jamie Anderson, Janna Mayen Weatherby, Cheryll Maas, Kjersti Buuas and Hana Beaman and I felt stoked to be apart of it.

Finals day came round and my nervous were up. I had to force feed myself shredded wheat and yoghurt and then head to the slope. I had decided all I wanted to do was make it to the podium as with not feeling 100% with my knee and the field of girls being strong; I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. Practice for finals went well and then literally 5 minutes before I had to drop for my first run my binding broke!! Holy crap, the screw had come loose, fallen out and I had no way to attach the ratchet. I ran round like a headless chicken trying to find another strap, or screw but nothing was fitting and I was panicking. Luckily my team manager had somehow found this 4 cm screw in the snow so we fixed it, strapped in, gained composure and then the announcement “Jenny Jones dropping in 5,4,3,2,1″

First run I landed, front 5, cab 5 and front 3. It felt good to have one run down so I decided to stay really safe on the rails and kept it basic for the next run but stepped up the jumps and tried the 720 but crashed. I had one more run. Before I dropped I new I had made the podium wwwwwwwooooooohhhoooooo. I felt like I wasn’t in with much of a chance at winning as the two other girls, Jamie and Janna had more technical runs and were battling it out for first. So I ignored that and just carried on with my own challenge of landing my run 5,5,7 and I did it, grabbed, smooth and landed. The only issue was a slight hand drag on landing the last jump but the judges didn’t penalise me too much and I went into first, though I assumed I would drop back down to 3rd after the last two girls had dropped.

Then, I don’t quite know what happened, two of the most consistent riders out there both butt checked their more difficult tricks on the last jump meaning I had won! I could not believe it. This might sound cheesy but what I thought of straight away was my parents as they were there and got to see it all. This was first time they had ever watched me compete and I’d just won the X Games Gold. I looked over and in true embarrassing parent style they were jumping up and down with a huge UK flag hahahaha.

I had won gold this year not because the other top girls were injured and not competing (like some kind people implied last year). But this time I, Jenny Jones, (that British chick) had legitimately won gold at Winter X Games 14, 2010. I was so happy and proceeded to go out for a drink, taking my balloon knee with me.

I’d just like to give a huge thank you to my left knee; well done for hanging in there, and of course my folks, my friends, all of the athlete support team, physios and medics, team manager for finding my screw and the amazing comments of support from people on facebook. Cheers, Jenny

I am now in Vermont still trying to control the swelling in my knee as I start to compete in the 3rd and last stop of the Winter Dew Tour in mount snow.