Wells, who represented New Zealand at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, received his prize at a ceremony held at the Lake Wanaka Centre.

The 26-year-old had never won a gold medal at the Winter X Games having claimed silver in 2008, 2010 and 2013, as well as bronze in 2012.

That record ended in Aspen in January of this year, however, as Wells topped the podium in the slopestyle discipline with a best score of 90.00 points.

His total saw him finish ahead of American Gus Kenworthy and Øystein Bråten of Norway, silver and bronze medallists respectively.

Wells’ achievement was enough to see him crowned the Overall Athlete of the Year at the Snow Sports NZ event, where he was also given the Freeskier of the Year award.

Other prizes were also dished out at the ceremony, with double Winter Youth Olympic Games medallist Finn Bilous taking home the Breakthrough Season award.

The 16-year-old freeskier clinched silver in the halfpipe competition as well as bronze in the slopestyle at the event in Lillehammer, host of the 1994 Winter Olympics, in February.

Christy Prior, who reached the semi-finals of the Olympic slopestyle event at Sochi 2014 before earning Winter X Games bronze the following year, was named Snowboarder of the Year.

Last year’s Overall Athlete of the Year recipient Corey Peters was chosen as the Adaptive Racer of the Year.

The Paralympic silver medallist won world titles in downhill and super-G as well as a silver medal in giant slalom at the International Paralympic Committee Alpine Skiing World Championships in Panorama in 2015.

This year’s awards encompassed a 12-month timeframe, including the 2015 to 2016 Northern Hemisphere season and the 2015 Southern Hemisphere campaign.