Knuckle Dusters: Is the Knuckle Huck the best contest at the X Games?
One of the Games’ unofficial events, the Knuckle Huck could well be the best contest in snowboarding right now, bringing the elements of style, technique, creativity and fun together.
By Jason Horton
3 min readPublished on
For the uninitiated, the ‘knuckle’ of a jump is the curved bit between the flat tabletop section and the steep landing of the jump.
Coming up short on a jump usually results in a knee-crunching impact with the knuckle, and so for a long, long time, the knuckle was something to be avoided at all costs – until Marcus Kleveland came along, and started turning tricks off the knuckle into an art form.
Other pros started joining in the fun, so in 2019 the X Games decided to make a bonus contest out of it. Marcus would of course have been the guest of honor, but was unable to compete due to totally destroying his kneecap on a rail in December 2018. It was a huge downer for the talented Norwegian teen, and despite having been warned his snowboarding career was probably over, Marcus then spent 2019 intensively rehabbing his knee, focused solely on returning to Aspen in time for the 2nd edition of the Knuckle Huck.
One of the Games’ unofficial events, the Knuckle Huck could well be the best contest in snowboarding right now, bringing the elements of style, technique, creativity and fun together like no other ‘discipline’ could hope for. Also, with a cast of slopestyle savants competing alongside Halldor Helgason, back after a six-year absence, and urban video star Frank Bourgeois, the start list was beyond diverse. So who would bring home the unique golden knuckle medal?
Fridtjof ‘Fridge’ Tischendorf is a self-described ‘snowboard stuntman’ whose trademark backpack sets him apart just as much as his insanely spontaneous riding style. Fridge mixed up style and tech perfectly, starting out with stylish Miller Flips and progressing up to an incredible 180 to switch 900 double cork out finale, for a well-deserved third.
Marcus Kleveland became an Instagram sensation with his incredible repertoire of knuckle tricks, and every time he dropped he raised the difficulty bar several notches above what anyone else was doing. Backside butter to Cab five, nollie backside 1080, Cab 720 in to buttered Cab 540 out… to put it another way: if knuckle riding was classic literature, Marcus Kleveland would be Knuckleberry Finn. By the 4th run Marcus had begun pushing the limits of possibility, and if he’d stuck his cab 540 to nollie backside 1080 he’d have won this thing for sure. But, he didn’t, and so gold went to…
East coast ripper Zeb Powell. Zeb showed up wearing funky sunglasses instead of goggles, and threw down the funkiest coffin slide to backflip for his opening trick. More straight crazy than technical, the judges loved it, and put Zeb into first place where he stayed for the duration. If snowboarding was music, Jeb’s riding was freeform Jazz, and at the end of the night, his weird and wild knuckle style was the perfect choice for the Golden Knuckle award.
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