Previously at the 99 X Games:
Day 4: Peter Line Jibs His Way To Gold
Day 3: Palmer Wins Boarder Cross
Day 2: Women's Halfpipe
Day 1: The Greatest Circus on Snow

It was not a great day for a halfpipe contest Sunday at the X Games with winds blowing sideways snow and a 3 inch powder field in the middle of the halfpipe. Weather aside, competitors battled conditions and each other Sunday morning until Jimi Scott ended up on the top of the pile to claim the men's halfpipe gold medal.

"I was never expecting this, I was just trying to stay on my feet. It was a rough day. My wife will be proud of me," said Scott with a huge smile after the final scores were announced. "It was a rough day for everybody. Everyone was just saying go fast and don't try and do tricks. This seems to be the motto in snowboarding right now, go bigger, don't worry so much about the tricks."

This is Scott's first major win since his win at the U.S. Open a few years back. In normal Jimi Scott style he pulled out a handful of tricks, varying every run, but also managed to pull some amazing amplitude in spite of the slow pipe.

"You really had to change your runs a little today because of the flat bottom and the slow snow. It was hard to do your normal runs," said the king of amplitude, Mike Michaelchuck.

It was pretty obvious early on in the competition that a lot of the competitors chose to not take the contest too seriously due to the poorly designed pipe and the horrible weather conditions. Ross Powers seemed to have trouble pulling any of his spins above the lip. Seth Wescott decided to pretty much bag the whole thing and became the two hit wonder, rolling up onto the deck mid-way through his run for one hitters. BJ Leines also seemed to like this technique and spent his three runs perfecting the tombstone slide at the bottom of the pipe off of the four foot high tombstone. Keir Dillon, after falling on his second run hopped back up the deck and then launched one huge air at the bottom of the pipe.

Luke Wynen and Allan Clark seemed to be among the few who were taking the contest seriously and worked their runs really well, although not really getting the amplitude either is known for. Wynen managed to get amplitude off the first two hits and completed two of his three runs without falling, putting him in third. Jeff Anderson rode much of the pipe switch out of annoyance with the conditions and John Sommers somehow managed to pull and interesting new variation of a backside rodeo with barely any amplitude to hoist himself around. We'll undoubtedly be seeing this trick in Sommers' runs in the future.

The afternoon was supposed to be devoted to snowboarding big air, but the strong wind delayed the competition until Monday. Instead the afternoon event to focus on was snocross. Palmer actually made it into the semi-finals of the snowmobile cross, but then came in last in that round. And what happened to Terje? Well, after the weather set in he decided to bail on the rest of the contest, opting for Play Station Gold matches instead of riding an icy slopestyle course or a powdery, flat pipe. Oh well, maybe we'll get to see him ride some other time.