X-games champion

• Jackson Molloy, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2005

The crowd had their eyes all set on me. This was it. My one chance at fulfilling my dream, one shot that’s all I have.

It’s the final round of the freestyle snowboarding event in the Junior Winter X-games in Canada.
A light tail wind was blowing.
“Perfect,” I said to myself out loud, “The wind will carry me a bit further along in the air. So I won’t have to worry about distance, just height.”
As you can see, the nerves were getting to me all right!
The competitor that just went before me did the most unbelievable trick in the known age of snowboarding. That definitely rose my nerve level, but what really put me off, was that finalist number four stacked and broke his legs and one arm. Ouch!

Just before they called me to go to the top of the steep drop onto the jump, the judges called out the placings and the points. The competitor who went just before rose to the top of the ladder and the crowd cheered and booed. His score was 9.8. It looked like I had to get a 9.9 or 10! The highest I have ever got in my life was a 9.7, and let me tell you, 9.8 is the best score for our age group in the world!

My name was called over the speaker, “Jackson Molloy, final competitor.”
I slid over to the top of the drop and looked down onto the jump. The crowd cheered as I buckled my feet onto the board. Already three competitors had wimped out and I imagine the crowd wouldn’t like if I did the same.

I stood up, put my goggles on my eyes, and the crowd went silent.
‘Here I go,’ I thought to myself.
The crowd went silent and I went down the drop at a speed I had never experienced in my life!
I reached the bottom of the drop and started up the jump.

Just as I was about to go off the jump and get some major air, I crouched down, grabbed the side edge of the board and leaned back.

It was only a few seconds, but they seemed the longest I’ve experienced.
I flipped backwards while holding the board, then flipped again grabbing the board’s tail. As I landed the crowd went crazy. I turned around to have a look what my score was and the judges held up the score the wrong way, and the crowd went crazy with laughter.
Some were calling, “Talk about professionals!”
“I could do that job,” others cried out.
I just gave a nervous giggle, as I watched the judges flip the board.

“Ten” I screamed. The crowd looked, started cheering then they all crowded around me and began chanting my name. I was handed my $100,000 and scrambled away from the crowd and went back to my hotel with my Mum and Dad who have been screaming the whole time on the way back.

WORDS 500 BY JACKSON MOLLOY