Dangerous weather doesn’t stop Jacobellis and White

Mother Nature chose a rotten time to deliver to the Rockies a much-needed dumping: the busiest day of Winter X Games 13.

And she delivered the worst kind of snow on an unseasonably balmy Saturday: wet and lumpy, mixed with rain, making fans sponge-like and causing generally fearless extreme athletes to worry about getting down Buttermilk Mountain safely.

Conditions were hazardous to poor, and weather was at least partially responsible for sending two competitors to Aspen Valley Hospital.

But gloominess and danger aside, many stars shone brightly, among them familiar names such as Jacobellis, Holland and White.

Some lasting images:

* Sarah Burke coming up short of the down-slope on her landing during the last jump on a powder-slowed slopestyle course, compressing her slender body with jarring abruptness. Thirty minutes pass before she’s strapped onto a sled and whisked to an awaiting ambulance.

Diagnosis: Compression fracture to part of her lower back.

Gone are the cheery eyes and bright smile of a day previous, when the Canadian rider earned a third consecutive gold medal in superpipe. She’ll be sidelined six weeks.

* Australia’s Anna Segal, winner of the same event, revealing that the eight finalists voted, 5-3, to hit all features on the downhill course, and that she is among the three who favored abbreviating the course to make it safer.

“It put a bittersweet tone on the whole event,” Segal says of the Burke incident.

* Great Britain’s Jenny Jones exclaiming, “I can’t believe I bloody did it,” after sticking a front-side 720 on the final jump and pulling past Spencer O’Brien -- 90.00 to 87.66 -- on her third and final run of the women’s snowboard slopestyle competition.

The snowboarders have benefited from a brief rain that made the course slick and allowed for swift enough speeds to clear the jumps.

* More snow, mixed with rain . . . Chris Mahaney tumbling down the Skier X course and coming to rest clutching his foot -- which is fractured and dislocated -- ending his hope of participating in today’s final.

* Lindsey Jacobellis, in a light snow, streaking to a 25-yard victory in the Snowboarder X competition. She makes a mockery of the competition and earns a second consecutive event victory, and fifth overall.

“I mentally prepare better for big events like the X Games and the Olympics,” she says, prompting a reporter to recall Jacobellis’ hot-dogging crash with a similar lead -- and her humiliating second-place finish -- at the 2006 Turin Games.

Perhaps she’ll be able to put that incident to rest at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

* Nate Holland’s come-from-behind triumph in Snowboarder X, despite powder-lined fringes narrowing an already tight, 3,500-foot motocross-style course.

It’s a four-peat for the Truckee athlete, who says, “It feels like just another win, but I’ve got a streak going so maybe you [reporters] can put a little more pressure on me again next year, to see if I can hang.”

* Carlsbad’s Shaun White spinning a 720 while soaring 75 feet across a gap too daunting for his snowboard slopestyle rivals. That, combined with White’s usual brilliance on the rails, kickers and boxes, earns a winning score of 96.00.

It’s his eighth Winter X Games gold medal, and his 13th overall Winter X Games medal. Both are records.

Says runner-up Scotty Lago: “We expect the best from everyone, but in the back of our minds we wonder who’ll finish second to Shaun -- unless we throw down our absolute best run.”

White tonight will attempt to defend his superpipe title.

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pete.thomas@latimes.com