26 January 2025, 8:10 PM
Wānaka’s Luca Harrington (20) has added a second X Games medal to his collection, winning silver in the ski big air in Aspen, Colorado on Sunday (January 26).
Luca went to X Games as an alternate in both of his medal events, walking away from the weekend with a gold and a silver medal, a result that has wowed the snow sports community.
After his winning slopestyle performance, Luca was one of the favourites for the Big Air competition. He was in elite company, with four of the eight skiers returning gold medallists.
With a stacked field, the expectation was that world first tricks would be delivered, and the excited crowd was not disappointed.
In what has become a trademark approach for Luca, he came out swinging in the playoffs and put down a triple corked 1980 with a tweaked tail grab, going huge and punching his ticket to the final with ease.
In the final Luca repeated the triple corked 1980 and was sitting in bronze medal position after the first of two finals runs. He upped the ante in his second run adding an extra 180 degrees of rotation, landing his first ever triple corked 2160 tail grab (six full rotations).
He was rewarded a huge score of 97.00 by the judges, just one point behind the leader.
Watch here.
Luca could not contain his excitement as he pulled into the bottom of the course and was surrounded by fellow competitors and his family congratulating him.
Winner Miro Tabanelli of Italy made history landing a double corked 2340 cuban grab for the first time ever in skiing. Matej Svancer of Austria rounded out the podium in third with a never-been-done trick of his own, in what was one of the most progressive ski big air events in memory.
This wraps up the 2025 Aspen X Games, where the NZ Park & Pipe team will be bringing home its highest ever medal count from a single X Games, five (two gold, one silver and two bronze).
The kiwi athletes will get the chance to take on the world class courses again at the Aspen World Cup, which is starting with the qualification rounds on Friday NZT (January 31).
PHOTO: Mark Kohlman / X Games