X Games Aspen 2026: Brett Turcotte Talks Gold Medal

All right, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we are here. We are live at X Games in Aspen, Colorado. We have recorded a handful of interview style podcasts with some of the athletes, and we're going to post these as soon as we can. We're sitting here at the table, we're going to chop these up and get them out as soon as possible, just so that it's current and relevant to X Games. So it'll be a little bit out of our normal schedule of every two weeks. I think you guys are going to like this better.

One thing we ask is just have a little patience. There is literally a concert stage right there, and there's people on the loudspeaker all day. Some of the episodes we had to start, stop, start, stop. Some of them we just pushed through. So there's going to be a little bit of background noise. We'll try and clean it up as best as we can, but just have a little patience, sit back, and enjoy a few of these athlete episodes here at X Games.

I want to start off with this, dude. Do you mind? Where did I send it to you? Remember when I asked you, "Hey, you going to do X Games this year?" Oh, your response. I was dying.

Oh, really? Hold on. Was it a really...

I think I screenshotted it.

Yeah, hopefully you did. Let me see.

I thought about posting it, but I'm like, no, I should probably get permission.

Let me look at it and then you could post it.

"You going to dust it off?" "Obviously." "For real?" "Dude. Winner's got to win."

Yeah. That's got to get posted, dude.

Maybe that gets posted up on a video overlay. There's not many people in the world that'll have a text message like that they could save. So this was September 30th, maybe the day it got announced. You were out chasing elk, I think.

Chasing elk, dude.

And I was pretty sure Brett's going to do this, I'm just going to check. So I sent him a text: "Dude, X Games question mark. You going to dust it off?" Like immediately: "Obviously." "Absolutely." And then I'm like, okay, wait, for real? And then: "Buddy, winner's got to win."

Man, I love coming to Aspen. I love coming here to win.

Yeah. So let's get right into this. It'll be a little quickie, a little fun. It's the last day. It's a beautiful day here at X Games on the other side of the camera.

Looking amazing out there. We just suffered through a couple of storm days and now we got some nice cool weather. Sun's out, and yeah, final day, man. Ready to bring it on.

So, two nights ago, Freestyle. When you hit your first run, did you know that was a gold medal run right there?

You know, I had a feeling, I had a hunch, and I was just hoping it was enough buffer to not have to go deeper into my bag of tricks. There were some things on the line that didn't get used.

So you were holding those off for the second run, in case you had to bring them out.

Yeah. One of them was a never been done. And I say never been done because I've never done it to a landing. It's never been done on dirt bikes, it's never been done on a snowmobile. But I was confident. It was one of the ones I was actually training on when I hurt myself in practice in November. So it was a little nerve-wracking waiting for that score to come through after the first round, but then I saw what it was.

93.3. Is that what it was?

Yeah, 93.3, which is my highest freestyle score that I've ever achieved. So that felt good, man. I think that just came from the pressure. I freaking love pressure. Wyatt made a reel for me this week and it says pressure is a privilege.

Yeah. If you don't have pressure, are you relevant? What are you doing? You're not doing much, right?

You're not stretching yourself. I come to these events, I always want to win. But being one of the veterans of the crew, and I'm competing against Willie too, he's on the higher end with a few more years than me, I just came in with the mindset that I'm going to go and do my best, and if my best doesn't win, then I wasn't the best that night.

Unfortunately a couple homies went down. Marcus was coming out swinging, and I knew that dude's ballsy. He's young, he's hungry, he wants that win really bad. If you haven't had that taste of X Games gold, you put every single thing on the line, limbs, everything, machines, to try and achieve that. I've done that three times.

Well, I guess four now.

Yeah, in practice. But I understood the assignment and just came in calm, cool, collected. Then all that chaos happened in front of me and I was like, damn, this is heavy, dude. Watching Marcus go down. I didn't see the crash. I didn't want to see the crash. I just knew he was down. That was tough. I was the next guy out after Marcus, so I had to go and just lock in.

And there was quite a bit of a gap, too. You had to sit there and think about things.

You see it in Supercross all the time. A guy rips a holeshot and then gets a red flag and he's got a restart. That's exactly the same process I was in. So yeah, just relieved that run one stuck. And the new format is gnarly, right? The no victory lap format. If you're the highest score, you have to go second to last on the second run. They're forcing you to wait it out. That was probably more nerve-wracking than the event itself, just watching Cody's run, because I knew he was going to clean it up and try and put it together. But man, coming out on top feels good.

No, that was awesome. And with such a gap in time since the last time you were here, sleds coming back and you getting the first gold medal at X Games, what does that mean?

It's huge. Not only for myself, but my entire team around me. Polaris, 509, Monster, Deviant, everybody that had their hands on making this program work for me. I put a lot of eggs into one basket and I think it showed. I trained my ass off, I came here ready, and I had to face adversity the entire way right to the event.

You can't keep a good wolf down. That's just what I kept telling myself every time I'd find something that was challenging me. Things that are just out of your control, even weather, mechanicals, injuries. Wyatt and I were sitting in the truck one day, kind of waiting on wind and whatnot, and he's like, man, it feels like the world is against you right now. I'm like, it's all good, dude. I've been here before.

So to get that win off my back, to stack this gold medal up. It's me out there on the snowmobile and it's me with the medal around the neck, but it's the love and support from my family and my wife. She just took full control of everything that needed to be done, logistics-wise and family-wise. I feel like I haven't seen my kids in so long. I've just been training and on the road. So it feels good to get that reward. It's more than just a medal. There's so much more that goes on behind it.

My crew back home, Jordan and Dustin and Chris, and my mechanic, Shitty Nick, we all put our hearts in it. Those guys are staying late after being at work all day, helping me in the compound and working on sleds. It's quite rewarding to come back and get the first gold medal.

Yeah, for those of us who are here, that intro they do before the event started kind of teased the buildup to your story getting here, and you had a setback. I remember about a month ago you sent me a text or called me and said you were on some rehab, and I had no idea. You were like, yeah, I haven't really said much about it. What was that like? Was there ever a moment in your mind where you're like, crap, I might not be ready in time?

Yeah, for sure. The hardest part was that unknown, right? The fear of the unknown, and just trusting the process that everything's going to be okay. I've got some of the best sports medicine doctors available to me. Greg at the acceleration gym in Kamloops, and Dr. Stanley back home. They took care of me really well. And like I say, my wife kept my nutrition on point, and I got back on a spin bike as soon as I could.

The broken ribs were tough. You don't know what the limits are until you find them. On the first ride back, having to hang my first KOD, I was certainly nervous. Are these ribs going to hold together? And the hematoma on my femur, it sounds like a bruise, right? But it's a bone bruise. It's deep. My entire thigh was purple from my hip all the way down past my knee into my calf.

So the ribs started feeling good, but the hematoma seemed like it took a long time to flush. Just lots of hours on the spin bike, trying to get blood moving. That first ride back was rewarding and relieving, and also stressful, because it was like, okay, now it's game on.

And game on it was, dude. The crowds have migrated over. As soon as those sleds start firing up, the crowds come over. If we're looking at it from the X Games side of things, do you think they're listening? Do you think they're watching? Do you think we've got some legs here?

Yeah. The voices were heard on the internet, and now the voices are being seen on the grounds. It's the same vibes I remember. I started coming here in like 2005, so it's been close to 20 years, maybe take away that hiatus. That's how I remember X Games. The crowds flocking as soon as you hear a snowmobile do a flip.

We're right here in the mix of it, dude.

They just flood off the Super Pipe. They come down out of the music venue, come out of the hills. It's insane. We saw it yesterday in seeding for Speed and Style. The crowd just all of a sudden blew up, and I stopped after my run and just took it all in. Man, thank you guys so much. This is so rad.

Yeah, that was sweet. If we go back to... oh, dude, my days are all scrambled. Today's Sunday, so we go back to Friday. Friday night, special night for you. If you could freeze one moment from that night, the moment you get to remember from taking the gold, what would it be?

It's a good thing I've got glasses on right now, because this one kind of wells me up a bit. Just hugging and kissing my wife, and dedicating that win to our dad. That meant a lot. He was watching over us. Last year at Jackson I had Pin It for Pat on my sled, and this year we went with the same program and had it on my helmet. Just that hug and that kiss and that moment of relief. You'll never replace that ever again.

And for those who don't know, your father-in-law.

Yeah. My father-in-law passed away of cancer about a year ago now. Unfortunately he's not at the event here with us, but he's certainly keeping a watchful eye on what we're doing.

May have had a hand in that hematoma.

Yeah, that's right. He's like, "Oh, you want to be tough? I'll show you tough."

Exactly. So, tonight is it, Brett. We've got Speed and Style. You had a slick run yesterday in seeding. Correct me if I'm wrong, is it a new format, or just because there was an odd number? The first seed gets a bye?

Yeah, the first seed gets a bye for round one, I believe.

So you get to watch.

Yeah, they dangle a carrot a little bit, give you something to shoot for. My goal was to be the number one seed anyway, because that gives me the best opportunity to get to the top as quick as I can. You guys saw that I was on a red sled.

Dude, everyone in the stands was going crazy. Like, what's going on here?

The broadcast and the color personalities did a really great job of explaining the story. I had to borrow Cody Matechuk's factory mod freestyle sled. Little known fact, most of the parts on there in the controls department are built to the exact spec of what I wanted. That's my seat, my handlebars, the Turcotte signature bars from CFR. The only thing that was different is he had slightly different flip levers, so I didn't end up using them. I went for a seat grab flip instead. Crazy, man. It's awesome to have a teammate like that who's willing to give up his equipment.

There's some risk in that, right? Heaven forbid something bad happens.

The mechanical I had after practice was substantial enough that it took the guys all day to get the sled going. I'm just thankful for the Polaris factory team, and Darren and everybody back at the trailer, Shitty Nick, my dad. I went to Cody and I was like, "Hey, do you mind if I go get a couple practice laps on yours?" And he's like, "Yeah, no problem." I was like, "Man, my sled's still not here. You think I can do seeding on it?" He's like, "Dude, it's yours if you want it." What a guy.

So I'm out there, I do my run, I come back through the finish corral, and I look, and it's Shitty Nick with a dart hanging out of his mouth, full pin through the staging area trying to come up and get me staged on my sled.

So they just missed you on your own sled, right?

Yeah, they missed my call window by about two minutes. It was down to the wire.

But you got some practice time on it after the seeding last night, right?

Yeah, I got some practice time on my sled, and it's feeling good, man. We're ready for finals here.

What's the plan? If you go back to your text message, winner's got to win. Is that the game plan tonight? What's it going to take to win the gold in this?

Dig deep. We're going to have to be smart about it. Going to have to do the right tricks and carry the speed where you can. When I talk about digging deep, I'm going way back into my snowcross roots. I've got to race against dudes like Willie Elam. He and I were on the Blair Morgan Racing snowcross team as teenagers, as kids. We've battled, we know how to race. Willie's a hell of a competitor in this event. And then you look at Cody. Cody's got massive tricks. So there's going to be some strategy for sure, but I've got my head wrapped around it. I think I've got it pretty dialed in.

Got the blueprint kind of figured out.

Yeah. Now we're just kind of chilling, waiting for finals to come on, and just trying to take it all in.

Awesome. Well, dude, I know you're super busy. This was a tough one to string together to get you over here, but I appreciate you coming over and popping on for a few minutes. Wish you the best of luck, and hopefully we get a little twinner right there for you.

It would be really sick. We're sitting on an odd number right now on the medal count, so I'd like to even that out.

Yeah. We don't want any odd numbers.

I'm an even guy.

Cool. All right. Thanks, Brett. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you guys later.

Thank you.