Snowboarding
Gloves off: After a weird season, Scotty James is more motivated than ever
Unable to train through much of 2020, the surreal 2020-21 season left Scotty James with a little more silver than he's used to. A blip he's determined to correct.
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Scotty James is standing at the top of a superpipe at Buttermilk, Aspen. At six-foot-two-inches tall – slightly taller when he’s strapped into his boots and bindings – he cuts an insignificant figure against the gaping, 22-foot-high jaws of the frozen brute before him. The brute he’s been taming since he was a child.
He fist-bumps his coach, then adjusts his red boxing gloves. James wears his red boxing gloves every time he competes because they help him get into the “fighting mindset”.
So James is standing at the top of a superpipe at Buttermilk, Aspen, about to take his first run at the 2021 edition of the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships (which were supposed to take place in Zhangjiakou, China, before being rescheduled thanks to COVID-19).
Scotty wears boxing gloves to help him get into the "fighting mindset"
© Red Bull Content Pool
The name 'Scotty James' is synonymous with the colour gold. He's been winning at the highest levels for well over a decade, and at just 26-years-old, he is arguably the greatest Australian snowboarder of all time. He's a triple Olympian, a three-time world champion, a three-time X Games gold medallist, a US Open champion, and finished last season ranked number one in the world.
But last month, during the 2021 Winter X Games – which was held at this exact location, on this exact pipe – James came in second, behind Japan’s 19-year-old Yuto Totsuka. Roughly a week earlier, at the Laax Open in Switzerland, the same was true: Yuto gold; James silver. While Yuto and James trade blows, the best any other rider can do is hope for bronze.
James has won the world title three times already. But he feels no pressure today. Competitive, sure. Winners want to win. But for now, he just wants to ride. He knows it’s a weird season – it’s been a year since he’s been able to compete. For most of 2020, having found himself stuck in Melbourne’s strict stage-four lockdown, James couldn’t even train or learn any new tricks. He could only run, cycle, lift weights and watch as his fellow competitors from around the world shared clips from their off-season sessions on social media.
For now, competing is enough. Gold can wait.
Scotty waits to drop in at the 2021 Laax Open
© Red Bull Content Pool
James edges towards the lip and drops in. He picks up speed and pops a habitual ollie in rhythm before hurling himself into the gullet of the pipe, turning 90 degrees as he does so to set himself up to switch for what comes next. What comes next is a switch backside 1260 – one of the hardest tricks in the sport – which he executes, perfectly, nearly 12 metres above planet earth.
Unlike other years, before the pandemic, there is no crowd flanking the pipe. It’s eerily empty; just a few photographers and camera operators, James’s fellow competitors, and essential event staff.
There’s no music, just the sound of a snowboard cutting through ice, James taking off, James landing, the occasional far-off whoop and cheer from the small crowd at the bottom of the pipe, and an announcer trying to make sense of it in real-time.
Sometimes you need to just do the thing, and stop thinking about it so much
When he was a kid, James was asked to draw what he wanted to be when he grew up. His classmates drew doctors and firefighters. He drew an “action sports person”, says his mum. On seeing the illustration, his teacher said, “that’s not a job.”
Maybe James is thinking about that teacher during his first run at Buttermilk. But probably not. Even if he was, he wouldn't be able to tell you. He doesn't remember much from his runs; he has this funny way of blocking everything out. Even the music blaring through his headphones. He hears the first 10 seconds, then, once he's in the pipe, nothing. "My ears switch off," he says. "And when I get to the bottom, the music blasts in my ear again. It's interesting."
Watch the first episode of All Day SJ in the player below to learn more about Scotty James.
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Scotty James's career is hitting new heights after a big winter, but success comes with responsibility.
Right now, James can’t hear his music. He charges a cab double-cork 1080. A frontside 540. A backside 1260. A frontside 1260. He beats his chest and pumps his fist. It’s a masterclass in superpipe execution; a knockout run.
“He definitely came to fight,” says the TV announcer. James’s first run gets him a score of 90.50. It’ll be the best of his three attempts.
But then there’s Yuto. 96.25. Another gold-medal effort.
One of James’s favourite movies is The Last Samurai. One of his favourite lines from The Last Samurai is: “Too many minds, you think too much.” It reminds him to not overcomplicate or overthink the events in his life or to spend too much time focusing on the outcomes or what-ifs. “Sometimes you need to just do the thing and stop thinking about it so much,” James reasons.
For many athletes who've grown accustomed to the colour gold and everything it represents, silver might be cause for a spot of soul-searching, a brief fit of anger or a bout of brooding frustration. Not so, for James. "My mindset is pretty good," he says. "For me, it wasn't necessarily about the winning or losing element. It was that I just want to get back to where I felt good. I achieved that, and regardless of the result, I feel good on the snowboard at the moment. After that much time off, that's really been my biggest goal."
With the World Cup – the final event of this bizarre season – just a week away and the offseason looming, the coming weeks and months will see James in the lab, “doing the thing” and thinking about the future. But not too much. “It doesn't take much for me to get very, very motivated,” says James. “And I'm more charged and motivated than ever. I feel like I'm in a very good place, and I'm going to do my thing, and I'm not going to worry too much.”
Find out how winter athletes prepare for the biggest contest of all in Chasing Winter:
42 min
Chasing Winter
Pro snowboarder Mark McMorris and friends prepare for the upcoming high-stakes competition season.
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