​​By Austin Smith​​

Petter Narsa and Mike Schultz entered the X Games in Aspen as opposites. 

Schultz is as close to a legend as it gets in snocross. The Minnesota native has competed at the X Games for 15 years and has six gold medals in his trophy case. Narsa, on the other hand, is a relative unknown. The 24-year-old Swede missed the last two X Games due to injury and had a career-best fifth-place finish in 2013. 

Career-best until now, that is. After last week's championship race, Narsa and Schultz sit atop their respective categories, snocross and snocross adaptive, as gold medalists.



Perhaps as surprising as Narsa's out-of-nowhere gold-medal finish was the fact that Tucker Hibbert not only didn’t win, but didn’t even make it on the podium. Hibbert entered 2017 looking to extend his streak of snocross gold medals to an astounding 10 straight, but instead finished fourth behind Narsa, Adam Renheim and Lincoln Lemieux, ending his dominant run. 



Schultz’s personal story is remarkable. From 2002-2008, he was a mainstay in snocross, but suffered a serious injury during a 2008 race that resulted in an above-the-knee amputation of his left leg. Incredibly, after inventing his own prosthetic leg, Schultz returned to the X Games in 2009 in time to win silver in the inaugural MTX Racing Adaptive competition.

Since his return, Schultz has dominated the X Games—this most recent gold medal is his seventh.