X Games Tignes: Decide Who Gets the Backcountry Gold

So the X Games have another contest in follow up to their Aspen series a month and a half ago, this one in Tignes, in the French Alps with all the euro-flare, fun boy snow, and well-accepted debauchery that riding on the continent entails. But as it wraps up, you have a chance to actually affect one of the contests of which I'm super excited, X Games Real Snow Backcountry.

The winner, as voted by the judges, will get $50 grand. But the winner as voted by the fans, that's you, will get the $10k. Then what happens? Then you hightail it to their local hill and tell whichever of these epic riders wins that you voted for him. The least the man can do is to buy you a drink with his winnings.

John Jackson vs. Jussi Oksanen - super stoney vs. superfinn. You decide who wins. At the least it'll break up the day, right?

On the other side, this is monumental because it's another attempt to bring together the constricted world of competitive snowboarding with the far more diverse, interesting, and mind-blowing (read: more superior) world of professional backcountry freeriding. Just look at the tricks these people do, how big they go, the changing backgrounds and beautiful natural surroundings of their "arenas" - it's truly groundbreaking that this should finally be embraced by a more mainstream public.

Though I'll be biting my tongue when every jerk-off decides to rent a snowmobile to head out and take pictures in front of Chad's Gap.

But that's to come. For now just click here, look at their profiles, load the video when it shows up, watch a quick ad for the event, then watch their individual vids side by side and decide. You make the impact in the future of athletics. Boom, motherfuckers.

- Ryan