New Winter X attendance record with 114,200 fans
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- Created on Monday, 31 January 2011 09:48
- Written by Brian Gomez
BY BRIAN GOMEZ, THE GAZETTE
ASPEN – Another attendance record has been set at the Winter X Games.
The action-sports festival that combines snowboarding, skiing and snowmobiling brought an estimated 114,200 spectators to Buttermilk Mountain over four days capped by Shaun White’s win in the superpipe, eclipsing the previous high of 85,100 established in 2001.
A single-day record 41,800 fans passed through the gates Saturday, when Kelly Clark got the best of Aspen resident Gretchen Bleiler in a battle of Olympic halfpipe medalists, and 33,400 people watched Sunday, as White, the two-time defending Olympic halfpipe gold medalist, claimed his fourth straight title, according to organizers of the ESPN-run event.
Buttermilk has hosted 705,950 spectators (admission is free) the past 10 years of Winter X, including more than 70,000 four of the past five years, the best stretch for the 15-year-old competition that launched in Big Bear Lake, Calif., in 1997, before moving to Crested Butte and Mount Snow, Vt. The current deal will keep Winter X in Aspen through 2012.
“There’s a real energy here,” said Nate Holland, who won a bronze in snowboarder X for his eighth Winter X medal. “And you can feed off of that and get pumped.”
WINTER X GAMES ATTENDANCE
2011: 114,200
2010: 84,100
2009: 68,100
2008: 72,500
2007: 76,150
2006: 69,650
2005: 69,750
2004: 66,500
2003: 48,700
2002: 36,300
Total: 705,950
Note: 2002 was the first year Winter X was held in Aspen
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