Canada’s Beaulieu-Marchand wins X Games silver medal in ski slopestyle

Canadian freestyle skier Alex Beaulieu-Marchand was thrilled to be leaving Aspen on Sunday with two X Games medals.

He was just as happy to be able to get some rest, too.

“Honestly my legs are destroyed right now,” Beaulieu-Marchand said with a laugh in a phone interview from Colorado hours after capturing the silver medal in slopestyle and a day after finishing second in big air. 

“It’s been a really big week with doing both events, skiing six days straight, but I was glad I was able to keep my energy and land one good run that was good enough for silver today.

“It feels like a dream to get two medals in two days at the X Games. It’s unbelievable.”

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Beaulieu-Marchand, the reigning slopestyle bronze medallist from the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, scored 92.66 points on his first of three runs down the Aspen course to seal second place.

The 24-year-old’s silver-medal winning run included a switch right-side double 900, a double 1260, and a switch triple-cork 1260.

“A lot of spinning,” he said.

American Alex Hall took gold with 95.66 points on his last run, bettering his second-run score of 94.33. Ferdinand Dahl of Norway earned bronze with an 80.33-point run.

Beaulieu-Marchand was coming off a silver-medal performance in big air on Saturday night that saw him land two tricks that he’d never done before, not even in practice.

The Quebec City native then came out firing on Sunday, scoring the highest mark in slopestyle qualifying with a 93.66.

He said both performances gave him an added boost of confidence heading into Sunday’s final.

Not that he needed it, however.

“I knew it was a really good run,” Beaulieu-Marchand said of his 92.66-point score. “But I definitely wanted to improve on it. I had a trick at the bottom I wanted to do but I made a mistake on a rail in Run 2 and then fully missed the trick in Run 3.

“But that happens. There are so many things going on, seven features, seven tricks in one run. A lot of people made mistakes and that’s when you know the course is hard.”

Beaulieu-Marchand has three total medals from the X Games, including a third place in slopestyle in 2017, to go with his Pyeongchang bronze.

“The Olympics was a dream but that’s in the past now,” he said when asked where the weekend’s results rank on his career highlights. “This week I was looking forward to these events and I wasn’t thinking about the bronze from the Olympics.

“I just put my objectives in the right place and I’m so happy I was able to conquer those goals.”

Melissa Couto, The Canadian Press