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Choi Gaon wins women’s halfpipe; Chloe Kim silver
You can’t script this. Well, maybe in the Star Wars universe, where Darth Vader struck down the people who guided him in the Jedi (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Sith (Emperor Palpatine) ways.
The mere fact that she upset her mentor’s quest for a threepeat would be dramatic enough. But she did it after a terrible fall in her first run. The Olympics results feed said she had withdrawn from the competition. Instead, she raced to the line for a second run on which she also fell.
Then her third run was majestic. She put the pressure on Kim to go even bigger, and Kim couldn’t do it.
The Olympics, folks. Where else do you see this?
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At worst, Kim will finish second behind the young woman she has mentored. But she surely wants the three-peat.
She takes her time at the top. The suspense builds. Snow is still falling.
Starts with the backside 720 again. Switch method air. Double cork 1080 … no! She can’t stick the landing.
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No! It’s only an 84.00? She’s fourth behind Ono. Sure, Ono’s run was very good, but … that’s a stunner.
Last person to go. Here goes Chloe Kim …
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CURRENT PODIUM
90.25 Choi
88.00 Kim (one more run)
85.00 Ono
Aside from Chloe Kim, the only person left to go is Japan’s Sara Shimuzu.
Double cork 1080 on her second trip. Frontside 900. Oh my. Could this drop Chloe Kim to bronze, pending her final run?
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Maddie Mastro does her long visualization again. She goes for the double crippler again. And she falls again. She’ll finish 12th, again. But you have to respect people who take the “go big or go home” ethos to such lengths.
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Rise Kudo also has landed her first two runs, but she has to go even bigger to land on the podium, and she can’t land all her landings. I need a thesaurus.
If I’ve done the math correctly, the USA will medal because there are only two riders who can knock out Kim, and one is Maddie Mastro, who’s up now.
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Cai Xuetong landed her first two runs. She opens with a 1080 and is putting together something special until her fifth landing, which she can’t stick. No improvement, and the people in the podium places can breathe a bit easier. That would’ve put her in contention.
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Choi knocks Kim out of first
It’s snowing hard again, and Choi Gaon is in the pipe, which is impressive in its own right after her devastating crash in the first run. She loads up with three 900s, and everything is clean.
Up to the judges … who are taking some times …
90.25! She’s ahead of her mentor Chloe Kim!
Choi Gaon flies into pole position! Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 19.53 GMT
Hosking walks away, which is a relief to see. Here goes Castellet …
Her first trick looks shaky. But her fourth is a very good 900, and she does another on her fifth! She lands it … but no! She can’t stay upright through the finish. Maybe a podium would’ve been tough to reach, but top five seemed likely. The veteran bows out with a 33.50, the best score of those who crashed on all of their runs so far.
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Can Canada’s Elizabeth Hosking make it through her impressive set of tricks without slipping at the end? She could contend for the podium if she does.
Unfortunately, no. She hits the lip of the wall and falls hard on her back. She’s moving around and able to unclip from her board, but she’s in pain and will get medical attention.
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Sena Tomita tries the same tricks as she did in her second run, which was only good for seventh. She’ll stay there after hitting the lip of the pipe and sliding down.
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Bea Kim goes big with her first three tricks but slips. She won’t improve from sixth, but she’s given a very good account of herself here at age 19.
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Mitsuki Ono is in second and could legitimately challenge Chloe Kim. The snow is falling again.
And Ono falls in the same place where she fell in the second run, about halfway down. She’ll stay where she is.
Mitsuki Ono with some height on her jump. Photograph: Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 19.40 GMT
Wu Shaotong runs nearly the same routine as her second run but changes one grip and is smooth enough to improve to 78.00, moving into fifth ahead of Bea Kim.
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Standings after second run
Everyone gets one more chance to improve …
88.00 C. Kim (USA)
85.00 Ono (Japan)
81.75 Kudo (Japan) – improved from 77.50
80.75 Cai (China) – improved from 73.00
77.00 B. Kim (USA) – improved from 7.25
70.25 Wu (China) – improved from 67.75
68.25 Tomita (Japan) – improved from 23.50
Hosking (Canada) has come close to completing a strong routine but hasn’t done so.
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What else can Chloe Kim do? Maybe launch herself into orbit?
The first three tricks are the same as in her first run – 720, switch with big amplitude, double cork 1080 again, and she tries back-to-back double corks!
But no, she can’t land that one. If she finishes that off in the last run, judges will run out of numbers.
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Sara Shimuzu also wiped out in her first run. The 16-year-old lands the 1080 double cork this time but only just, and she loses so much momentum that she can’t get through her third trick. No improvement.
Here comes Chloe again …
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The good news for Maddie Mastro is that the snow stopped a while ago and is no longer a factor. Will she once again attempt an otherworldly trick to start?
She goes through her visualization again. I want this woman to be my life coach.
Frontside double crippler again … and she crashes again.
At this point, though, she probably can’t dial it back for her third run. She’ll have to try it again.
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Rise Kudo is the rider who was just bumped out of third place. How will she answer?
(Side note: The Japanese judge gave her a 77 on her first run, lower than several other judges!)
This looks good early. She seems to lose a bit of speed partway through, but she finishes with a 1080.
Is that enough to get back on the podium? Yes it is! 81.75, a point ahead of Cai.
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Cai Xuetong had a solid 73.00 in her first run and managed to sneak in a sixth trick, which is unusual. She starts with a frontside 1080 and has a solid run, but her landings don’t look as smooth as Chloe Kim’s. She once again sneaks in a sixth trick.
She’ll improve into a podium place, surely.
And she does. 80.75, third behind Kim and Ono.
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SURPRISE! Choi Gaon was listed on the results page as “DNS,” but she dashed to the start line and started her second run!
But she crashes early. Nothing that would cause an injury concern this time – just a slide on her backside.
Shaun White is chatting with Snoop Dogg, because why not?
Snoop on the scene. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/ReutersShare
Updated at 19.22 GMT
Queralt Castellet Ibanez has four X Games medals, one gold. She has a solid run going but has to put a hand down to avoid a tumble, and that throws off her routine. She improves to 24.00.
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Choi Gaon has withdrawn after her horrific crash in the first run. She won the X Games in 2023 at age 14. Real shame not to see her continue here.
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Elizabeth Hosking works hard to psych herself up. She does a lot off-axis rather than rotating a lot until her fifth trick, where she rotates a lot for a 900 … and falls again. She pounds the snow in frustration.
She doesn’t improve from her 27.50. This wasn’t going to be a podium run, anyway, but she’d surely rather land this routine than not land it.
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Sena Tomita is the 2002 X Games champion in addition to her Olympic bronze that year. She took time off after that.
She attempts the same run as her first one, including a 1080 at the end, but remains upright this time. Her scores, unlike Bea Kim’s, are very consistent – all 68s or 69s. 68.25
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Bea Kim fell on her first trick in her first run.
This time, she lands the 900, then a 720. She leaps more than 10 feet on her third trick and finishes with a 720.
Ooooh, maybe I spoke too soon about controversies. That’s a 77.00, fourth place, 0.5 behind Japan’s Rise Kudo. The Japanese judge gave her a 74, though that score is dropped. The other marks range from 75 to 80.
Probably splitting hairs at this level, though. Both very good runs.
Bea Kim of United States in action during the second run. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/ReutersShare
Updated at 19.23 GMT
Mitsuki Ono, second after the first run, tries a 900 instead of a 540 early in her run, but she crashes after her third trick and will not improve her score.
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Run 2 will have the same start order as Run 1.
Wu Shaotong runs almost the same routine as her first but changes her fourth trick from a 540 to 900. Her score bumps up accordingly.
70.25
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Standings after first run
Reminder: Only the best run of the three will count.
88.00 Kim (USA)
85.00 Ono (Japan)
77.50 Kudo (Japan)
73.00 Cai (China)
67.75 Wu (China)
No one else completed a run without a fall, so those scores really aren’t worth collecting here.
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Chloe Kim is just awesome.
There’s no other way to describe that.
OK, we’ll try – backside 720, switch backside air, switch double cork 1080 …
A mere mortal, upon landing that trick, would take it easy the rest of the way. She didn’t.
Good luck beating that.
88.00
Here goes Chloe! Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 19.01 GMT
Sara Shimuzu (Japan) is another 16-year-old and the 2025 world championship silver medalist. What were you doing at age 16?
Her first trick is very graceful. Her second is an attempt at a double cork 1080 (two somersaults, three rotations), but she can’t stick that landing, as her board hits parallel to the lip of the halfpipe.
10.50
Look who’s next …
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Maddie Mastro (USA) does a bit of visualization of her run before dropping in. It’s very Zen. She has two world championship podiums but was 13th and 12th in her two Olympic runs.
She goes big on her first trick with two flips, but she can’t stick the landing.
5.50
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Rise Kudo (Japan) is just 16 but finished fourth in last year’s world championship and is second in the World Cup. She throws down a solid run that ends with a bang – a full 1080.
That’s a 77.50.
Next up: the USA’s Maddie Mastro, known for throwing in the most difficult tricks in women’s halfpipe competition.
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Cai Xuetong is in her fifth Olympics and finished fourth at home in 2022. She’s a three-time world champion, and she looks like it. Her biggest rotation is a 900, but the variety of her tricks is fun to watch, and it’s clean.
73.00
And Snoop is here. So is Myles Garrett, the NFL star who happens to be dating one Chloe Kim.
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Choi’s score is 10.00, but that’s hardly the main concern right now.
Only two of the seven riders to drop into the halfpipe so far have made it through without falling – Mitsuki Ono (85.00) and Wu Shaotong (67.75).
Choi manages to get up and slide slowly down the middle of the pipe. Good to see, but you’d have to think her participation in the rest of this is in doubt.
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South Korea’s Goan Choi is Chloe Kim’s friend/rival. Just 17, she’s the World Cup leader.
Her first two tricks are amazing, but then she suffers a hard fall. She catches her board on the lip of the pipe and then tumbles headfirst back down to the base of the pipe. She’s down and getting medical attention.
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Spain’s Queralt Castellet Ibanez is 36. Yes, 36. She took silver in 2022, improving bit by bit over five prior Olympics (26th, 12th, 11th, 7th, 2nd) and has two world championship podiums.
She falls early. You have to wonder if this snow is going to make it difficult. A crew passes through the pipe to clear out the fresh layer of precipitation.
4.75
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Canada’s Elizabeth Hosking was sixth in Beijing and took silver in the 2023 world championships. She made her Olympic debut at age 16 in 2018.
And … whoa. Every trick has high amplitude, she’s doing off-axis moves, and … oh, she falls at the end. That was shaping up to be something special. If she lands that same routine on one of her next two runs, watch out.
27.50
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Japan’s Sena Tomita is the defending bronze medalist. She also runs into difficulty and will not be counting this run.
23.50
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Bea Kim is just 19 and has deferred admission to Columbia University to do this.
She falls after her first trick. She gets back up and does simple non-twisting tricks the rest of the way.
7.25, which she obviously won’t want to count.
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Oh my. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono just put in a run that might put her on the podium already. A 900, a lesser trick to recover, then a dazzling 1080 – it’s a lot more demanding than Wu’s run, and she lands everything.
85.00
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China’s Wu Shaotong is up first, and she may have a slight advantage because it’s snowing, which might slow down some of the competitors after her.
She’s smooth and gets decent amplitude, but her tricks aren’t as tricky as some of the others in this field. Still an accomplishment to get to this final after being 22nd in Beijing.
67.75
Wu Shaotong with a steady start in the snow. Photograph: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPAShare
Updated at 18.41 GMT
Start order for run 1
1. Wu Shaotong (China)
2. Mitsuki Ono (Japan)
3. Bea Kim (USA)
4. Sena Tomita (Japan)
5. Elizabeth Hosking (Canada)
6. Queralt Castellet Ibanez (Spain)
7. Choi Goan (South Korea)
8. Cai Xuetong (China)
9. Rise Kudo (Japan)
10. Maddie Mastro (USA)
11. Sara Shimizu (Japan)
12. Chloe Kim (USA)
It would seem that bordering the Pacific Ocean is a plus in this event.
We’re off …
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Meanwhile, in curling, three of the four games in progress had a blank in the first end. I sense a rules change coming up in a year or two, maybe taking hammer (last shot) away from the team that had it when a blank was posted.
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The format
Each athlete gets three runs. Only the best of the three counts, giving them a margin of error that must be the envy of every figure skater and gymnast.
Judges are looking for amplitude (height), difficult tricks and smooth execution.
If you’re not sure what a double cork is, check this explainer from a few years ago.
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Judged sports
Exceptions are surely out there somewhere, but it’s interesting that snowboarding and freestyle skiing events simply don’t attract the same level of controversy that figure skating and gymnastics get, isn’t?
A lot of people in the USA have questions about yesterday’s ice dance, to put it mildly. Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won gold – at least, according to four of the nine judges, and their margins of victory were enough to outcount the five judges who preferred Madison Chock and Evan Bates.
The controversy is fueled by some off-ice issues, as Sean Ingle explains:
Gold went to the controversial French couple, Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, with 225.82 points, after their routine earned them a top-scoring 135.64pts. Not everyone in the arena was convinced that such a high score was justified.
The pair, who teamed up last year when Fournier Beaudry changed her citizenship from Canada to France, have faced deeper scrutiny. Part of that is down to allegations made by Cizeron’s former partner, Gabriella Papadakis, and the suspension of Fournier Beaudry’s former partner, Nikolaj Sørensen.
In January, Papadakis’s memoir, So as Not to Disappear, called Cizeron “controlling” and “demanding”, allegations he has described as defamatory. When asked last week about the book, Cizeron said: “I’ve said everything that I needed to say on that subject.”
In 2024 Sørensen was suspended for six years by Canada’s Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner for sexual maltreatment. The suspension has been overturned by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada on jurisdictional grounds.
Off the top of my head, I can think of several similar controversies in figure skating (even one that centered on a French judge, as is the case with the ice dancing here), but I can’t think of any in what we used to call “extreme” sports. What am I forgetting? Or is there some reason – lack of a fraught history, ethos of post-Gen X athletes, etc. – that accounts for the lack of nasty debates in these sports?
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Coming into these Olympics, there were a handful of standout athletes we all knew we needed to watch …
Ilia Malinin hasn’t been at his best but still clinched the gold medal for the USA in team figure skating and has a substantial lead in the men’s event.
Mikaela Shiffrin had a puzzling first race here.
Jordan Stolz has the first gold in a potential hat trick.
Jessie Diggins took bronze today in a gutsy performance that left her moaning and holding her bruised ribs in agony after she crossed the finish line.
And now, it’s Chloe Kim, who isn’t showing any aftereffects from a recent torn labrum. She looked spectacular in qualifying, and who knows what she’ll have planned today.
As in all Olympic halfpipe competitions, she’s certainly not the only snowboarder to watch. This one is going to be fun. Action starts in about 52 minutes.
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Preamble
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how Chloe Kim won her last Olympic title, in 2022:
American snowboarder Chloe Kim has become the first woman to successfully defend the Olympic halfpipe title, soaring to an untouchable lead with a gigantic opening run and cruising to a historic repeat gold.
Kim, dropping in last among the 12 competitors to qualify for Thursday morning’s final, set the bar with a huge first run which included two 1080s and three spins down the course known as the Secret Garden Olympic Halfpipe, covering her mouth and dropping to her knees in jubilation upon seeing her score of 94.00 announced.
She fell on her subsequent runs while trying to debut the 1260 – three and a half revolutions in the air – but the sheer amplitude for her opening foray was more than enough to secure the gold over Queralt Castellet of Spain, who earned the silver with a score of 90.25, and Sena Tomita of Japan, whose 88.25 was good for bronze.
Kim’s resounding win played out before an audience that included her friend Eileen Gu, the freeskier from California who captured the freestyle big air gold on Tuesday competing for China. The two embraced at the bottom of the pipe before Kim headed back up for her final attempt.
“I was so proud of myself,” an elated Kim said in the aftermath. “I had the worst practice, ever. I probably landed my run twice when I’m used to landing it eight times, normally, and so that puts you in a weird headspace. It felt so inconsistent. I didn’t want to feel all that pressure of having to land my first safety run (in competition). I overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go, and it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new (in her second and third runs).”
You can read the full report below:
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