The Australian Institute of Sport male athlete of the year has done it again with another gold to add to his impressive trophy cabinet.
The Land Rover US Grand Prix Event is the FIS World Cup season opener at Copper Mountain and it didn’t disappoint for Warrandyte local Scotty James on the weekend in Colorado.
The 25 year old’s first run topped the leader board with 96 and stayed there for the next then into the third where gold was already in the bag before his simple victory lap of the halfpipe.
“I definitely put some added pressure on myself after last year with some big expectations” said the Australian Institute of Sport male athlete of the year after the event.
“I had to iron those emotions over and just come out with a clear head and approach it as a new season. I did that and just came out today and knew what I had to do to be up top. The elements weren’t in our favour today but everyone rode really well and I knew they were going to, so I had to bring it today.”
Held in challenging light and snow conditions, the event saw silver go to Yuto Totsuka from Japan with 94.5 on his second run and Ruka Hirano from Japan with 89.25.
James, a three time FIS World Champion also won an Olympic bronze medal at PyeongChang in 2018 and has a plethora of X Games medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze) and now seven FIS World Cup medals (4 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze).
Did we mention he won every major event in the 2018/2019 competition circuit?
Next up for James is a trip to Secret Garden in Beijing from December 20 to 22 for the FIS World Cup halfpipe event in China.
