2022 Beijing Olympics – Snowboard – Women’s Snowboard Halfpipe Final Run 3 – Genting Snow Park, Zhangjiakou, China – February 10, 2022. Gold medallist Chloe Kim of the United States celebrates after her win. REUTERS/Mike Blake
February 10, 2022
By Winni Zhou and Mari Saito
ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) -American Chloe Kim put in a dominating performance on Thursday to win the women’s halfpipe snowboarding gold and successfully defend her 2018 Olympic title.
The 21-year-old blew her competition away with a top score of 94 in her opening run. Spain’s Queralt Castellet took silver and Sena Tomita of Japan won the bronze medal.
Kim, who at 17 became the youngest woman ever to win Olympic gold in snowboarding at the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, roared back in style after taking nearly two years off the slopes.
“I just was so proud of myself,” Kim said about her first run, saying she had a terrible practice session where she fell twice going into Thursday’s final that had initially put her in a “weird headspace”.
“I was just like overflowed with emotions when I was able to land it on the first go.”
From her first run, Kim led the final. Given her sizeable lead, Kim attempted a cab 1260 in her second and third runs but fell both times.
Castellet got the next highest 90.25 and Tomita scored 88.25.
China’s Liu Jiayu, who won silver at Pyeongchang, ended at a disappointing eighth in the final.
Each of the 12 boarders in the final got three runs in the halfpipe, with their ranking determined by their best score out of those runs.
The course, officially called the Secret Garden Olympic Halfpipe, is more than 200 metres long and 22 metres wide. The inner height of the halfpipe walls is 7 metres.
(Reporting by Winni Zhou and Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Perry and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
