With the contest season fast approaching we wanted to check in with X Games gold medalist—and certified legend—Scotty James. This chat can serve as both a look back and look forward, how he's gotten to where he is and where halfpipe boarding as a whole goes from here. 

Were you watching X Games as a kid and, if so, do you have a favorite memory of the event from before you started competing? 

What's my first memory of X Games? It was, actually, funnily enough, more so related to freestyle motocross. My dad was passionate about motorbike riding when I was growing up. And one of my first memories was watching—I think Mike Metzger did the first backflip on the motorbike in the X Games. And then I remember seeing Cary Hart doing it maybe the year after. So, that's kind of my first memory of watching X Games. And then my first experience at X Games, I would've just been watching from the crowd when I was 11 or 12 years old, which was a cool experience getting to see all the guys riding and I remember seeing it and thinking, that's where I wanna be. So, it's been awesome to have my X Games journey go where it's gone. 

Do you have a favorite personal memory as a competitor, not from being on the sidelines, but actually being in it? 

I think probably winning my first X Games. That was a pretty special moment in Aspen and I actually had my family there at the time, my mom was in town. Obviously putting it on such a pedestal through my younger years, and then being able to win was pretty special. It was 2017, my first time. 

What do you think of this new generation that's coming up now? Do you see these kids as the biggest threat to you competitively?

Yeah, I mean the next—you’re naturally always looking to see who's riding well and I guess stand guard, wanting to still be standing at the top of the podium. But I think presently the Japanese team are a force. They're riding super well, all the young generation, but even the present ones I've been competing against are riding super well. But it's progressing so much, the sport, and it seems that the next gen can adapt quite quickly and learn a lot of the new stuff quickly. Naturally I think they're ones to watch for sure. 

How does it feel to be almost like an inspiration to so many of these kids who are now actively trying to come and take you down? It almost seems poetic in a way.

It is poetic for sure. I think it's a combination of both that keeps me honest with what I'm trying to accomplish competitively. I think the young kids or the riders starting their careers not only motivate me to see what I can do better, but they push me. In a roundabout way it's funny that potentially they’re there because of myself and other snowboarders that they might have watched and looked up to, and now I'm probably strapping in next to them to compete against them. It's pretty amazing, and I would say a relatively unique thing to snowboarding as well. It's very fun, having seen a lot of them grow up and then now competing against them.

I'm sure you were probably in that situation yourself, coming into the halfpipe arena to ride against people you looked up to? Was that surreal? 

Definitely. The guys I always looked up to were Danny Davis, I stood on an X Games podium with him. Kevin Pearce, always looked up to him. Arthur Longo, I mean, there's a lot of guys that I really enjoyed watching ride halfpipe, Shaun White obviously being extremely dominant. So, through my younger years watching them and aspiring to try and compete or replicate what they've been able to do in their careers inspired me. And then I had my moments where I was competing against them, which was quite cool. 

Where do you see halfpipe going? I don't know if it's like this in Australia, but I know in North America halfpipes are getting fewer and farther between and some people say it's dying. I don't know if you see that or feel that way.

It's just an interesting time. I've heard that a few times, people saying that halfpipe’s not necessarily in a very healthy place. For mountains and resorts, it's a huge commitment to build a 22-foot halfpipe. A full, large scale halfpipe is a lot of snow, it's a lot of hours. It can be relatively consuming from a space perspective on hill. So I can see for a resort how they would look at it and maybe think twice about whether or not it's feasible for them and if they've got the space for it. 

Do you have a—I don't wanna say solution because obviously there's not one thing you can do to fix a shrinking format like halfpipe, but what do you think? What do you think people can do to give halfpipe a little bit more life?

When I grew up riding halfpipe, the first halfpipe I was riding was a 12-foot or 16-foot, roughly. It's a far lesser commitment for mountains to build something like that versus a 22-foot halfpipe for starters. When I started it was more accessible. It was easier. Everyone was able to build them. It was more feasible for mountains to do it. I think that's where it's changed a lot and how we can actually change that moving forward is to build more halfpipes that people can ride. I was in a position which was really exciting—I bought a halfpipe cutter, a 16-footer from Finland and I brought it to Australia and I gave it to my local resort called Thredbo. It's called Mooki’s Mini Pipe, which is my nickname, and I put it up there. And, and that was really about fueling the next generation's interest in halfpipe. But what I've actually noticed is that all the old pros that I used to watch and love are up there again as well, and they're loving it and they're enjoying hiking it, and they're just having fun. It's got this playful environment back in the halfpipe. I think 22’s will always have a place, but I do think that pushing the more entry level halfpipe riding is actually gonna be better for the future and into the future because it helps the kids have a better taste in their mouth when they ride halfpipe for the first time. It's less scary, it's less daunting. It's more fun. And then you can go into the bigger ones. Whereas at the moment there's no transition. It's just big and it's just scary. I don't blame people that don't want to go straight into the big halfpipe. I think we can build smaller ones and build a better foundation of interest for the kids, but also the pros presently and see where we can go from there. 

Halfpipe isn't like slopestyle, you get to a certain point and you can't keep making the walls bigger to get more air like you can do with building a jump. So that being said, where does halfpipe progression go from the triple? Because it's hard to imagine people doing a quad, just because the airs aren't really getting higher, the walls aren't getting bigger.

I honestly ask myself that question every day, more so because I'm scared for the day someone's gonna do a quad. I bet it'll happen. But I think there's more ways and directions you can spin. Riding halfpipe already is quite technical. There's so many different variations of ways that you can spin and flip in a halfpipe. I think that's the luxury for the pipe, whereas a jump you can only really go frontside, backside, and you're always kind of going in that same direction. The pipe, you've got a little bit more—a few more options as to the way that you can spin and do variations. So I think there'll be a healthy dose of that creativity in the pipe, which I love. And then there'll obviously always be someone pushing it from a trick perspective. I think that a quad is…who knows? I mean never say never, but I do think this year we'll start to see some bigger spins adding on to what already exists.

For more information on X Games, including how to get tickets, head over to their website here.