Celebrating its 15th year in Aspen, Colorado, the premiere winter action sports and youth lifestyle festival will showcase the talents of more than 200 of the world’s best athletes in skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling. These athletes will compete for medals and prize money and their achievements will be accompanied by world-class musical performances and interactive festival elements. The 2017 Winter X Games will take place from 26th-29th January.
Event organisers have already taken to Twitter to reveal the lineup for X Games Music at Buttermilk Mountain, and it is going to be an amazing weekend of music. Last year’s lineup included deadmau5, Nas, Kygo, DJ Snake, Twenty One Pilots and Run The Jewels. Kicking off this year’s musical event, is Bassnectar, who will take to the stage on the Friday night. Anderson.Paak and The Chainsmokers will follow suit on the Saturday night as G-Eazy closes out the weekend’s festivities on Sunday. Fans who want to see all four acts can purchase tickets for the whole weekend.
The Winter X Games is a major winter sports competition organised by American TV channel ESPN every year. They were founded in 1997 but not nationally televised until 2002. Athletes compete in various winter extreme sports for the opportunity to win gold, silver or bronze medals. The whole weekend’s sports is aired on the ESPON Network, which also includes ABC and ABC Sports.
The Winter X Games are typically held every year in January or February with the Summer X Games being held in August. The main competitions are held in the United States but there are international competitions. Since 2002, the winter version has been held at the Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado and ESPN states that it will continue to be held there until at least 2019.
History of the X Games
- In 1995, ESPN launched the first Summer X Games (then called the “Extreme Games”) in Newport, Rhode Island. Two years later, the inaugural Winter X Games was held at Big Bear Lake, California. Since then, Aspen has been home to the Winter X Games.
- There are six competition venues at the X Games: Slopestyle, Street, Snowmobile, X Course, SuperPipe and Big Air.
- Target as a sponsor made its first appearance at the Winter X Games in 2003.
- In 2002, the entire U.S. Olympic Snowboard Freestyle Team showed up to compete in the Winter X Snowboard SuperPipe event, just weeks prior to the Salt Lake City Olympics.
- Course builders will spend up to 5,000 hours preparing Buttermilk Mountain for the games this year, says Chris Castaneda, Director of Operations for Snow Park Technologies (SPT) Projects.
- 2011 marked the most-watched Winter X Games ever, with 114,200 people in attendance and 39.7 million tuning in from home during the four-day event.
- Shaun White is the only athlete to compete in both the Summer and Winter X games in two different disciplines. In total, White has earned 16 Winter X Games medals and five Summer X Games medals.
- Winter X Games XI introduced the first-ever disabled discipline, Mono Skier X, featuring the top 16 disabled men and women racing in individual sit-skis.
