Unified Snowboard & Ski Races Set to Commence on Friday at X Games Aspen

Photo by Ben Solomon

20 January 2022—X Games Aspen 2022 will host 20 Special Olympics athletes tomorrow, 21 January, at the Buttermilk Ski Resort in Aspen, Colorado, for the Unified Dual Slalom competitions—snowboarding and skiing. Each team will consist of one Special Olympics athlete and one X Games athlete paired together. The combined times of each team’s time will determine the results.

Tomorrow will mark the seventh edition of the Unified Snowboarding Slalom and the second edition of the Unified Skiing Slalom at the X Games. First-time X Games snowboarder Mackenzie Beauvais-Nikl, co-chair of Special Olympics Colorado, will compete in her home state. She’s the first Special Olympics athlete to serve as a board chair for a chapter of the organization. Mackenzie will pair up with 22-year-old professional snowboarder Zeb Powell to comprise their unified team.

Beauvais-Nikl’s fellow Special Olympics Colorado athlete Palmer Lyons will headline the Unified Ski Slalom along with his partner, Gus Kenworthy, a five-time X Games medalist and Sochi 2014 Olympics silver medalist. Palmer is a student at Colorado Mesa University where he’s on the alpine ski team. Together, the Lyons-Kenworthy team took home the gold medal at Buttermilk in 2020 with a time of 31.23.

You can check out the action and the athletes live on January 21 at 4:40 p.m. EST. ESPN will stream the competitions live on @XGames on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Find a list of competitors below.

ESPN is the Global Broadcast Partner and the Global Presenting Sponsor of Special Olympics Unified Sports®. In 2019, Special Olympics and ESPN extended and expanded their game-changing relationship that has spanned over three-and-a-half decades.