(Photo credit score: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes)
LIVIGNO, Italy — Choi Ga-on of South Korea gained the gold medal within the ladies’s snowboard halfpipe after recovering from a daunting crash in her first run on the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Thursday.
Double defending champion Chloe Kim of the United States took silver and the bronze went to Mitsuki Ono of Japan within the Alpine city of Livigno.
Choi, 17, was almost knocked out of the competition after the primary spherical when she flipped the wrong way up and landed on her head. She sat on the bottom for a number of minutes as medical workers attended to her earlier than standing up and driving down on her personal.
In the second spherical of three, she flubbed a touchdown and fell backward.
In the third spherical, Choi put a surprising 90.25 on the board, elevating her above Kim’s main 88.
Kim, recovering from a latest shoulder damage, had a closing probability to seize the gold however fell backward on a touchdown. Choi started crying when she realized Kim’s misstep assured her the gold.
The halfpipe options riders sliding throughout a 22-foot-tall, U-shaped ramp and performing acrobatic maneuvers within the air. Kim took halfpipe gold in Pyeongchang in 2018 and at Beijing 2022.
No snowboarder – not even males’s nice Shaun White – has been in a position to win three straight Olympic golds. White, who was within the crowd on Thursday evening, claimed three however they had been in 2006, 2010 and 2018. He is now retired from the game.
While Kim missed out on a three-peat, she smiled and laughed on the backside of the halfpipe as she stood with the opposite medalists.
Kim was competing along with her shoulder held in place by a brace and has mentioned she is going to want surgical procedure quickly.
A gentle snow fell in the course of the contest. Seven of the 12 riders fell in the course of the first spherical.
–Reuters, particular to Field Level Media