By JOSEPH WILSON Associated Press
LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Chloe Kim fell short in her bid to become the first Olympic snowboarder to win three consecutive gold medals, finishing second to Choi Gaon of South Korea in the women’s halfpipe on Thursday.
Choi dethroned the two-time defending champion after she bounced back from an ugly crash that had silenced the crowd. The 17-year-old drew another gasp when she jumped into the lead with a score of 90.25 on her final run.
Kim had one more shot to get back on top, but the 25-year-old American wiped out on her final run and settled for silver. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono claimed bronze.
Kim, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea, had encouraged Choi throughout her young career. Now she has handed over the Olympic title to the teenager she inspired.
“It’s all about passing the torch, so there’s no one else I would have rather stood next to on the podium than her,” Kim said. “I’m so proud of her and I’m so excited to see what she does next.”
Choi’s chances in the final looked to be in jeopardy when she slammed into the incline of the halfpipe and slid to the middle of the course, where she remained for several minutes. After being attended to by medical staff, she rode off the course unassisted.
“After I took my first half I thought, ‘Do I need to give up?'” Choi said. “I cried, clenched my teeth, and started walking and felt the energy came back into my legs. I thought I can keep trying and I could get back into these Games.”
It wasn’t clear that she would even come back for her second run, but she did and got it down. Then came her turn down the halfpipe that was good for gold.
“This feels surreal. I can’t believe my first Olympic medal is gold,” Choi said.
Choi became the youngest X Games winner in 2023 at age 14. Now the first-time Olympian is first non-American woman to win gold in snowboarding’s premier event since Torah Bright of Australia in 2010. Kaitlyn Farrington won for the U.S. in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics, and Kim triumphed in Pyeongchang and Beijing.
Kim injured her shoulder four weeks ago, disrupting her lead-in to the Games. She competed wearing a brace, which didn’t stop her from dominating the field in qualifying.
But after Thursday’s final, the California native said she would need surgery on her shoulder — and that winning an Olympic medal of any color was a victory given that she was riding hurt.
“I think that there was a lot of conversation happening about the three-peat,” she said. “I was thinking about it before, but I think the minute I injured myself I was like, that doesn’t matter anymore. So this feels like a win to me because a month ago it didn’t seem too possible.”
Another gold-medal celebration had looked likely after Kim scored 88 points on her first run, while Choi and most of the other finalists wiped out.
But Kim couldn’t stay upright on either of her remaining runs, and her score from the first wasn’t good enough.
Kim is not alone in letting the milestone of golds in three consecutive Winter Olympics slip away at these Games. Czech Ester Ledecka fell short in Alpine snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom, as did Austria’s Anna Gasser in big air. Both were also two-time defending champions.
American snowboarding great Shaun White won three gold medals on the halfpipe, but not consecutively. He won in 2006, 2010 and 2018. He finished fourth in 2014.
White was in the crowd Thursday and cringed after Kim fell on her final run. Kim’s boyfriend, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, was also in her cheering section, along with Snoop Dogg. Like many in the crowd, they had gathered to watch one of the biggest names in snowboarding go for Olympic history.
Instead, they watched Choi wipe away tears as she held up her medal, one step up on the podium from the rider who has been her idol.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics