Chloe Kim secured the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe with her very first run at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Thursday—and made history in the process.
Kim’s score of 94.00 put her in the top spot at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou. She remained there for the rest of the competition. That didn’t stop her from pushing even harder on her final two runs.
The 21-year-old’s win makes her the first woman to take back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the snowboard halfpipe.
Kim, the reigning women’s snowboard halfpipe Olympic champion, came to the 2022 Winter Games as the overwhelming favorite to win gold. Yet Kim had no plans to rest on her laurels. She told TIME in an Olympics cover profile that she was planning to “go off” and had three new tricks to unveil.
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She used her next two runs to attempt a land a 1260 trick, three and a half turns in the air—a feat never accomplished by a female snowboarder in competition—but was unable to put it down.
Kim fell on her second run, and a spill by Japan’s Ono Mitsuki ahead of Kim’s third run meant that she had secured gold before her final run. But, Kim still went for it.
Despite her gold medal win, Kim appeared just a little disappointed with her performance. “I hit my face so hard,” she could be heard saying after her third run.
Read more: Chloe Kim Is Ready to Win Gold Again—On Her Own Terms
Eileen Gu, the American-born free skier competing for China, who is wildly popular in the country, was there to support Kim. The athletes were seen hugging after Kim’s second run fall, and Gu could be heard encouraging her. “You’ll get it on your next one!” she said.
Queralt Castellet of Spain took the silver, and Japan’s Tomita Sena won bronze. The distance between Kim and her closest competitor…
Source : time
