(Photo credit score: Reuters//Marko Djurica)
LIVIGNO, Italy — China’s Su Yiming celebrated his twenty second birthday by profitable the boys’s snowboard slopestyle last with an unbeatable first run that handed his nation its first gold medal of the Milan Cortina Olympics on Wednesday.
Taiga Hasegawa of Japan took silver, whereas Jake Canter of Colorado claimed bronze for the United States.
Su, the slopestyle silver medallist at Beijing 2022, began the primary of three runs with spectacular jumps and clear landings for a rating of 82.41 underneath sunny skies within the Alpine city of Livigno. None of the 11 different rivals may attain him.
Hasegawa’s highest rating of the day was 82.13.
Canter, 22, recorded a rating of 79.36 on his third and last try. This was his first Olympic Games, coming after he suffered a traumatic mind damage at age 13 in a trampoline accident.
As for Su, he yelled with pleasure and clapped his palms when he realized he had received gold. Su shed tears as his coaches and rivals congratulated him, and he shook his head in disbelief as he stood on the medal podium.
Su beamed when requested how he would rejoice his medal, his birthday and the Chinese Lunar New Year.
‘To have all my pals, my household right here, I believe we’re going to have an excellent time,’ he mentioned. ‘As lengthy as I obtained this gold, I believe all this celebration goes to be insane.’
The slopestyle contest had been delayed by a day when a snowstorm compelled organizers to transform the schedule.
Su received bronze within the males’s huge air final week, having claimed the title 4 years in the past. He mentioned he felt ‘loopy stress’ in that occasion because the defending gold medalist.
He mentioned he additionally felt stress on Wednesday to win a gold for China.
Su mentioned he ‘nearly forgot the sensation from 4 years in the past’ of profitable gold.
‘To have the ability to get yet another at the moment, it means the whole lot to me,’ he mentioned.
Mark McMorris, who has three Olympic slopestyle bronze medals, completed eighth after crashing on two of his three runs.
The oldest competitor within the subject at 32, the Canadian suffered a concussion initially of his fourth Games and needed to skip the large air occasion.
‘I knew I had what it takes, however I wasn’t capable of simply put all of the items collectively, and that at all times stings,’ McMorris mentioned.
–Reuters, particular to Field Level Media