Livigno (Italy) (AFP) – South Korean teenager Choi Gaon shocked US snowboard superstar Chloe Kim in the Olympic women’s halfpipe final on Thursday as the American missed out on a historic hat-trick. Choi, 17, scored a competition-high 90.25 in her third run at Livigno Snow Park to top Kim’s score of 88.00, with the American having to settle for silver. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono took bronze with a score of 85.00.
World Cup leader Choi recovered from a brutal fall on her first run. Medics came out to check on her as she lay on the snow for a few minutes before getting up and skiing to the bottom of the course. Kim, watched by her boyfriend, NFL star Myles Garrett, and US rapper Snoop Dogg, appeared to be on the brink of becoming the first snowboarder in history to win three Olympic golds at consecutive Games after posting her score of 88.00 in her first run.
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But in a competition littered with crashes, Choi produced a stunning performance under intense pressure as the snow swirled down on the floodlit venue. Kim, skiing last, took her time at the top of the halfpipe, adjusting her snowboard, but crashed during her run, handing gold to Choi. The American, who suffered a dislocated shoulder last month while training in Switzerland, has dominated women’s halfpipe since the 2022 Beijing Games, winning X Games gold in 2024 and 2025 and claiming her third world championship title last year.
No snowboarder, man or woman, has managed to win three titles at consecutive Olympics, with two athletes missing the chance to do so earlier in the Games in Italy — Ester Ledecka, from the Czech Republic, and Austria’s Anna Gasser. Even Shaun White, widely regarded as the greatest snowboarder of all time, did not manage the feat, winning three golds over four Olympics.
In the halfpipe, competitors perform a series of tricks while snowboarding down a slope with a semi-cylindrical shape. They are scored on the breadth and difficulty of the jumps. Only the best run of three counts.
© 2024 AFP
