Sit skier Josh Dueck made his first appearance at the Winter X Games last weekend and came away with a gold medal in the Mono Skier event.

Dueck, born and raised in Kimberley, said the Winter X Games are different from other events he's taken part in.

"My first impression of the Winter X Games in comparison to other events is it's more of a community feel. Everybody is there working with each other to make sure that everyone has their best performance and they put on a good show," he said. "Whereas at a lot of other races it's all about you - it's on a very individual basis. Although at the end of the day there's only one person that can win, it's kind of just the whole vibe around the entire group at the X Games. It's awesome."

The video of Dueck winning his race is available at the ESPN web site. Right at the start of the race two of the four skiers fell, leaving only Dueck and Brandon Adam.

"A couple of the guys struggled out of the start, it was a pretty intense starting area and honestly it was a bit disappointing when they crashed because I was hoping it would be a little more entertaining and competitive throughout the run but basically after the first 100 m unless I fell, I knew I was going to win it," Dueck said in an interview from his home in Vernon.

The course was a challenging one.

"The first time I did the inspection when I got to the X Games the course scared the shit out of me. The bottom jump was, I think, 75 or 80 ft. back from the knuckle, the landing hill, and the first time I hit it I probably went 120 ft," Dueck said. "On day one we inspect the course, day two we run it in sections, day three we qualify and day four is the semis and final and to be honest I hadn't hit a jump like that in a long, long time so I had to really build my confidence up."

He said winning the event at the Winter X Games was very important to him.

"It is pretty important for me to have done that because deep down inside I'm a free-styler and even though I spend most of my time ski racing it was really good to accomplish something like this that's that much closer to my roots of being a freestyle skier," he said.

Dueck's first trip to the Winter X Games was also his first trip to the mountain town of Aspen, Colorado.

"It was quite the trip just to be in Aspen. Ever since I saw the movie Aspen Extreme when I was a little kid I've always wanted to go there and that was one of the reasons I wanted to become a skier. I wanted to live down by the river like Dexter Rutecki, a character in the movie. It was just so important to actually fulfill a part of that dream. I've been pretty lucky, I've travelled all over the world but Aspen was one of the places I'd had yet to visit and it was cool," he said. "It reminded me a lot of growing up in the Kootenays because it's an old mining town is what it is. The only difference with Aspen is up on the hill there are giant multi-million mansions."

People will be able to congratulate Dueck on his win in person if they are in Kimberley Feb. 10-13 as Dueck will be in town competing in the IPC Telus Nor Am speed event at the Kimberley Alpine Resort.