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The final day of the "double aught" Winter X Games wrapped up in sunny and windy style Sunday, with boarders and skiers flying over huge crowds in clouds of frigid powder-spray. They were, however, flying a bit lower than expected, as the weather here in Vermont forced a relocation of the big air contest to a more modest jump. Doing the best trick became more important than getting the biggest air, but there was still plenty of action for the crowds.

But it's not so easy to be a spectator at the X Games. With TV running the show, the time between runs can be excruciating — especially when the wind chill is taking the mercury below zero. Add to that the over-enthusiastic announcers pumping up the crowd for the cameras and an audience only too happy to oblige ("dude I was on TV today!"), and you have an exercise in patience.

For the most part, that patience was rewarded with some excellent airs and tricks, especially considering the new venue. Rather than use the exposed big air slope for today's event and risk cancellation due to the wind gusts, organizers moved today's venue to the Snowboarder X course and used its more moderate final kicker to launch competitors into the blue Vermont skies.

Crowds were smaller than Saturday's estimated 30,000 – the predicted bad weather no doubt keeping many people in their cozy homes. But those who braved the weather had the last laugh, as the truly miserable conditions never fully materialized — there were only occasional finger-and-toe-numbing gusts.

Style — rather than amplitude and distance — was the key ingredient to success for both skiers and boarders, who pulled out the backside 540s, flips and inverted airs to score points in a best-of-two format. Only the highest score of the two runs, most of which were in the seventies and eighties, counted.

The women kicked things off late in the morning, 13 ladies taking to the kicker after gauging their landings during some practice tricks. Tara Dakides of Laguna Niguel, CA, nailed the first inverted jump of the day, sticking her landing like buttah. This advanced the slopestyle winner into 1st place, ahead of Barrett Christy.

X Games Fun   Total Prize Money: $445,000   States represented: 26   Countries represented: 17   Average age of competitors: 24   Oldest: Kirk Hibbert (42)   Youngest: Shaun White (13)   Visit Mount Snow

Dakides held on to the lead after the second run, taking the gold with a winning score of 78 — nearly five points ahead of silver medallist Leah Wagner. While the jump didn't allow for too much hang time, the ladies made the best of it, going for it on each run.

A couple of hours later, the men got tricky as the sun began to set and the shadows lengthened. With a long list of competitors, it took a while to get the two runs in.

Most of the men were throwing switch-stance 720s and 900s, with an occasional backside 900 tailgrab or backside rodeo 720 thrown in. Style master Peter Line launched a nice frontside 900 and, on both attempts, stomped the landing fakie, taking the lead with only one competitor left.

"Stylemaster Peter Line launched a nice frontside 900 and, on both attempts, stomped the landing fakie..."

Line kept the top score of the day and took the gold. Landing his own frontside 900 (with a fakie landing) Kevin Jones finished with the bronze, while Jason Borgstede's second jump, which he barely landed in one piece, was good enough for silver.

Skier Big Air
Launching off the same jump, just before the snowboarders pushed all the snow down the hill, the skiers held their own big air contest. Candide Thovex of La Clusaz, France, took top honors, ripping the jump with style. In case you were wondering about Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley, he could only manage 9th.

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UltraCross
The final event for Sunday was a sort of tag-team race, the Ski/Snowboard UltraCross. Combining the finalists from the Skier X and Snowboarder X, the event saw four boarders go out of the gate together, followed by four skiers. The skiers, however, had to wait until their snowboarding "partner" (from a drawing) reached the finish line before heading out.

Snowboarder Travis McLain teamed with Swedish skier Peter Lind to win the UltraCross — the newest racing discipline at the 2000 Winter X Games.

"I always drive really fast and take chances. Pain is only temporary," McLain said. "Glory lasts forever. Drive fast and take chances." Spoken like a true X Games poster boy.

We're not sure what the purpose of this whole event is, but it did look good on the TV monitors. Scott Gaffney (one plank) and Sverre Lilequist (two planks) took the silver.

And so ends another Winter X Games. Mount Snow will be back on the schedule again next winter, so we can only hope that the weather cooperates a bit more, or else some decision-maker back in Bristol is going to look pretty dumb for choosing the coldest spot in the country for this event. San Francisco is up again for Summer X, so check back for that and we'll see you at the races!

— Ari Cheren, channelling Hans Prosl and doing a rodeo flip into the parking lot for MountainZone.com