One of the deepest fields at X Games Tignes -- men's Ski Slopestyle -- will be slightly weakened by the absence of four-time X Games gold medalist Bobby Brown, who suffered his second significant ankle injury in less than a year last month in Austria.

Skiing in Bad Gastein during the Red Bull Playstreets urban slopestyle competition, Brown hurt the same lower leg that he injured last summer while training in Oregon.

"I was taking my first run through the course and went a little big on one of the bottom jumps," Brown said of the Austria injury. "I landed pretty heavily on my right (previously injured) ankle and it buckled. I got X-rays and it showed that I fractured the bottom of my fibula."

In last summer's crash, Brown came up just short on a jump at Mt. Hood and broke the same ankle. He missed the rest of the summer before returning to snow in the fall then gradually getting back into competition form.

At X Games Aspen in January, Brown finished sixth in Slopestyle and fourth in Big Air -- two events in which he's won gold before.

"I'm so bummed because I was just starting to feel it again, but this recovery will be much less intense than when I broke it [last] summer," Brown said. "I'm excited to watch everyone kill it at Euro X this year. I'll be back very soon."

X Games Tignes kicks off March 20 in the French Alps.