 Richards has a Super Saturday
by Daniel Dodd, ESPN.com
MOUNT SNOW, Vt. -- Winning the silver medal in Snowboarding Slopestyle on Friday just wasn't enough for Todd Richards. The Massachusetts native went back out Saturday and shored up the gold medal in Superpipe before he even took his final run at ESPN's Winter X Games.
After posting a 92.00 on his second of three runs, Richards sat back and watched hometown hero Ross Powers go all out on his final run to try to top his first place score. Early on it looked like Powers, born in Burlington, Vt., would do the deed. He hit a solid 900 early on and came right back with a fakie-to-fakie 900 in the same run, much to the delight of the fans, who were packed in by the thousands.
|  | | Richards claimed his third career Winter X Games gold medal by winning the Men's Superpipe competition. |
But it wasn't enough for the judges as Powers scored a 90.67, thus clinching the gold medal for Richards.
"It's great. I'm really stoked," said Richards. "The other day at Slopestyle, that was just a bonus. I came here wanting to do better in the Slopestyle than I did in Halfpipe so I got both. I got my cake and I got to eat it too."
Richards says that his snowboarding has improved greatly since he mellowed out and stopped focusing so much on the competition.
"I used to get really stressed out all the time," says Richards. "It didn't really do me any good to psych myself out. I'm just over that whole phase now and I'm really enjoying snowboarding."
After the competition, Powers said his plan for the final was simple - don't leave anything in the bag.
"Once you get in the finals you just kind of go for it. You don't have much to lose," says Powers, who won Winter X Games gold in both the Halfpipe and Slopestyle in 1998. "You have a few runs to go out so I wasn't stressed at all. I was psyched to do well in front of the home crowd."
After the event, Richards tossed his goggles into the crowd and turned to the throng of reporters and photographers who were gathered at the base of Sundance Run.
Suddenly he realized that tossing his eyewear before the interview isn't such a good idea.
"Hey, somebody get me a pair of Oakleys, like real quick," said Richards.
With a fresh pair of eyewear firmly in place, logo fully visible, he entered the media blitz, this time as a gold medalist.
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Men's Snowboarding Superpipe Results
|
| |
Name |
Run 1 |
Run 2 |
Run 3 |
Total |
| 1. |
Todd Richards |
82.00 |
92.00 |
52.67 |
92.00 |
| 2. |
Ross Powers |
86.67 |
80.67 |
90.67 |
90.67 |
| 3. |
Tommy Czeschin |
83.67 |
87.67 |
86.67 |
87.67 |
| 4. |
Trevor Andrew |
78.67 |
86.00 |
84.33 |
86.00 |
| 5. |
Gian Simmen |
78.00 |
75.33 |
54.67 |
78.00 |
| 6. |
Marius Sommer |
75.33 |
77.67 |
70.33 |
77.67 |
| 7. |
Lael Gregory |
77.67 |
22.33 |
38.33 |
77.67 |
| 8. |
Luke Wynen |
67.67 |
49.33 |
75.67 |
75.67 |
| 9. |
Guillaume Chastagnol |
75.67 |
26.67 |
32.00 |
75.67 |
| 10. |
Rob Kingwill |
62.67 |
74.33 |
44.67 |
74.33 |
|
