James Woods: British skier wins gold in slopestyle World Championships in Utah
- Published
Skier James Woods became the first British man to win a World Championship gold medal on snow when he triumphed in slopestyle in Park City, Utah.
Woods, 27, won with a score of 86.68 on his second run in difficult, windy conditions in the US.
The gold is Woods' first at the World Championships, following on from a silver he won in 2013 and bronze in 2017.
Norway's Birk Ruud took silver while American Nicholas Goepper was third.
Ruud finished 1.28 points behind Woods with a score of 85.40 while Goepper scored 85.18 on his third and final run at the Freestyle World Championships.
"It was a bit of a wild day to be honest with you," Woods said.
"We're hanging off the side of a mountain here - judging the weather conditions, assessing the wind, knowing what the snow is doing.
"Today was a pretty close call whether it was going to be fair. I only care whether conditions are fair and everybody's safe.
"I lucked out a little bit, but you've got to take it haven't you?"
The medal was Great Britain's third of the Freestyle Skiing and Snowboard World Championships following Charlotte Bankes' snowboard cross silver on Friday - Britain's first World Championship medal in snowboarding - and Izzy Atkin's bronze in the big air on Sunday.
The only other Briton to win a gold medal in a snow event at a World Championship was Evelyn Pinching - who claimed gold in the downhill and combined at the 1936 Alpine World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria.