Jussi Oksanen won an X Games gold medal earlier this week. Yes, that Jussi Oksanen. That’s not a phrase you’d normally expect to read these days is it? But the veteran Finnish maestro was tempted back into the competitive arena by the prospect of the X Games’ first ever Real Snow Backcountry contest. Like their Real Snow Street vote-a-thon at the US X Games (won this year by Louif Paradis) eight riders were invited to submit videos of themselves shredding erm ‘real’ snow, and viewers were asked to vote on their favourites. Jussi’s topped the charts apparently, closely followed by the efforts from John Jackson, Nicolas Muller, and Gigi Ruf. Check out their efforts and all the others below.

JOHN JACKSON

NICOLAS MULLER

GIGI RUF

IKKA BACKSTROM

MARK SOLLORS

MATHIEU CREPEL

DEVUN WALSH

UPDATE:
So it turns out that although Jussi Oksanen won the prize for the public vote (like Louif Paradis at the US X Games) there was actually a separate gold medal awarded by a panel of judges, which went to Nicolas Muller. We’re not sure why they needed two prizes, but anyway, Gigi was judged to have the second best entry, while Jussi was given third. But in the voting, John Jackson finished just behind Oksanen, having beaten Gigi, while Muller had lost out to Oksanen in an earlier round. Does that make sense? No, we found it confusing too…