Mark McMorris seizes slopestyle gold at X Games
Canadian 1 medal shy of Shaun White's record at competition
Canadian Mark McMorris used a dramatic final run down the slopestyle course on Saturday to take the gold medal at the X Games in Aspen.
The Regina native scored 96 points on a monster third run for his 17th X Games medal, one off American Shaun White's record.
WATCH | McMorris soars to slopestyle gold
McMorris, a two-time Olympic bronze medallist in slopestyle, was coming off a silver-medal performance in big air Friday night.
The 25-year-old scored 89.66 points on his first run down the slopestyle course on Saturday and 21.33 on his second. The final score is the best of three runs.
Finland's Rene Rinnekangas won silver with 94 points and Mons Roisland of Norway took bronze with 91.33.
Sebastien Toutant of l'Assomption, Que., appeared to have stamped his spot on the podium with a 90.66-point third run that put him in position for bronze. He was bumped with McMorris's final score.
In the men's ski big air Saturday evening, Quebec City's Alex Beaulieu-Marchand finished with a combined score of 87 to capture silver behind Norway's Birk Ruud (89) and ahead of Britain's James Woods (82). Evan McEachran of Oakville, Ont., came in fourth with a score of 81.
The 24-year-old Beaulieu-Marchand picked up a bronze for Canada at Pyeongchang's slopestyle competition.
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Earlier in the day, Spencer O'Brien finished just off the podium in the women's snowboard slopestyle.
O'Brien, from Courtenay, B.C., earned 81 points on her second of three runs down the course.
New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won gold with 91 points. American Hailey Langland was second with 90.66 and Enni Rukajarvi of Finland took bronze with 84.66.
Stoneham, Que., rider Laurie Blouin, the 2018 Olympic slopestyle gold medallist, was seventh in the eight-woman final.