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The Savoyard competes overnight from Sunday to Monday in Beijing. A recent double winner of the X Games, she has already won almost everything in slopestyle and big air, her favorite events. All that’s missing is the Olympic gold, which she intends to win twice in China.
Until the foggy afternoon of January 21, no woman had yet managed to land such a jump in competition. That day, on the mythical Buttermilk domain, in Aspen in the United States, historic scene of the winter version of the “X Games” – the equivalent of the world championships in extreme sliding sports -, Tess Ledeux put on her skis, down the slope, then took off, spinning for four and a half turns, before landing on its two spatulas, hands on its head. A “double cork 1,620°” rated almost perfect by the jury (49/50). More than enough to ensure the 20-year-old freestyler wins in the big air – an event that will make her first Olympic appearance in Beijing.
“I’ve been working on this jump for a while, admits the Savoyard to Release. I put it on the snow the first time in November, but it was really not clean, I had put my hands down. I laid it for the first time perfectly the day before, in training. At the X Games, I knew it was the last time we were going to find a big snowpark, and therefore a big jump, like at the Olympics. It was really the dress rehearsal, the perfect moment to take that leap and build my confidence. Everything went exactly as planned,” she rejoices, well aware of having entered the history of her discipline.
She will even leave Colorado with the double, thanks to a success in slopestyle – a test of acrobatic tricks on a track strewn with tre…