Before this year's competition, the X Games Competition Committee decided to whittle the Women's Superpipe final down, taking only the top 6 of 20 riders in the qualifier. (Previously, the top 10 were allowed to advance.) If there were any doubters of this decision, they are now silent. The new format, which allowed the super-elite to take three runs instead of the standard two, set up a battle that made the Pac/Biggie thing look tame.

Three women snowboarders in the world lead the pack in pipe, by a substantial margin. Tonight, with three runs and each other to feed off of, three former Gold Medalists, Torah Bright, Kelly Clark, and Gretchen Bleiler, moved women's snowboarding up a few rungs on the ladder of complexity.

Bright made her whole continent proud a year ago, when she unexpectedly won the Pipe event on Australia Day by opening a can of technicality that the women had never seen.