Sara Shimizu And Ryusei Yamada Win The Snow League Aspen

We know to expect drama at The Snow League. We got it yet again.

Sara Shimizu and Ryusei Yamada each won the Aspen stop for the women and men respectively. Here's the podium:

Women:

1. Sara Shimizu
2. Maddie Mastro
3. Sena Tomita

Men

1. Ryusei Yamada
2. Yuto Totsuka
3. Jake Pates

Yuto Totsuka came to Aspen with an Olympic gold medal in his suitcase. He didn't fall on any of his runs leading up to the final. It almost seemed like he was sure to lock up that top spot.

But that's why the finals format requires riders to win two out of three runs. And after Ryusei Yamada beat Totsuka on their one-trick run run - in which they attempted a switch alley oop double backside rode 900 to start the finals - the door was left open to unseat Totsuka.

Yamada fell to open up run two, which meant that Totsuka could rely on his fallback plan to force sudden death. He did just that.

Then an unlikely thing happened: both riders fell on run three.

First it was Totsuka, who fell on his second hit. Yamada proceeded to clip the top of the pipe on his third hit. He had one extra trick on the scoresheet, and that was good enough for his first Snow League win.

Maddie Mastro got back on the podium for the first time since the Olympics just days ago. She finished in second, after putting down the second frontside 1080 double of her career. She stumbled a bit at the bottom of the pipe, and that gave her a score of 70. Shimizu answered with her own frontside 1080 double though, and outscored Mastro with a massive 94.50.

With the pressure on, Mastro needed to put down a nearly flawless run, all while dropping into her less-dominant side of the halfpipe. She fell, and 16-year-old Shimizu, in her first Snow League appearance, secured the win.

Pates reached the podium for the first time since returning to competitive snowboarding after a six year hiatus. He took down Cam Melville-Ives in the consolation matchup in another contest that went to a sudden-death third run.