Chloe Kim was yesterday “not in a good place” when she woke up for the women’s snowboard halfpipe final at the Beijing Games, she said — but she certainly was when it was all over.
The American sensation overcame a “mental battle” to defend her Olympic title, virtually guaranteeing herself the gold with a scorching-hot start.
She claimed an unassailable lead of 94 points after her first of three runs, clutching her helmet and dropping to her knees as she slid into the finish area.
Photo: AP
“I had the worst practice ever — I probably landed my run twice when I’m used to landing it eight times normally and that kind of puts you in a weird headspace,” the 21-year-old said.
“I just overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go, and then it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new,” she said.
Spain’s Queralt Castellet took silver on 90.25, while Japan’s Sena Tomita claimed bronze on 88.25.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Kim gave her rivals little chance of catching her after her first run, turning the rest of the competition into her own private victory lap.
It gave her breathing space to try some new tricks to a crowd that included California-born Chinese freestyle skiing star Eileen Gu, but she fell on both her second and third runs.
“My butt hurts,” Kim said with a laugh after attempting a difficult cab 1260 trick on her final run.
Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal when she claimed halfpipe gold as a 17-year-old at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
She struggled to cope with the pressures of fame in the aftermath, and she yesterday said that she had learned to accept it was “unfair to be expected to be perfect.”
“I think the biggest challenge for me now is just to be as open as possible, because I hope that maybe one day a little girl can hear my story and be inspired to keep going, to never give up, to learn that it’s OK to have a bad day,” she said.
SNOWBOARD
AFP, ZHANGJIAKOU, China
Austria’s Alessandro Haemmerle yesterday narrowly claimed the men’s snowboard cross gold at the Beijing Olympics, squeezing past Canada’s Eliot Grondin by a fraction of a second in the final.
Grondin took an early lead at Genting Snow Park, only for Haemmerle to steadily reel him in.
Grondin made a frantic late lunge for the finish, but Haemmerle held him off, grabbing the gold medal by the finest of margins.
“I was shocked at the first moment when I looked up at the video — a huge relief,” said Haemmerle, who becomes the first Austrian ever to win an Olympic medal in snowboard cross, which involves four racers dueling it out over jumps and bumps.
Haemmerle called the final “super exhausting,” adding that the course “wanted everything off your body.”
Italy’s Omar Visintin won bronze after edging ahead of Austria’s Julian Lueftner in a similarly fierce battle for third place.
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
AP, ZHANGJIAKOU, China
Therese Johaug yesterday won her second gold medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The Norwegian great added another title to her tally by winning the 10km classic race five days after winning the first gold medal of the Games.
Johaug glided around the cold, windy course in 28 minutes, 6.3 seconds.
As she watched others come in with slower times, realizing the gold was hers, she shouted and howled, throwing her head back and pumping her arms in the air.
Kerttu Niskanen of Finland was ahead of Johaug at the 8.6km mark, but crossed the finish line 0.4 seconds behind. Krista Parmakoski of Finland earned bronze, 31.5 seconds behind.
ALPINE SKIING
AP and REUTERS, BEIJING
Austrian skier Johannes Strolz yesterday won the Olympic gold medal in the Alpine combined race, which is not bad for a guy who was not even on the national team until about a month ago.
The 29-year-old Strolz, who has only won one World Cup slalom, was fourth-fastest after the downhill run, but was half a second quicker than anyone else in the slalom, helping him edge first-run leader Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway by 0.58 seconds.
The combined adds the times from one downhill run and one slalom run.
Strolz’s father, Hubert Strolz, won gold in combined and silver in the slalom at the 1988 Calgary Games.
“It’s really a great moment for me and I’m so thankful that I finally can live my dream and have this gold medal in my hands like my father did in 1988 in Calgary,” Johannes Strolz said.
James Crawford won bronze. The 24-year-old Canadian said he was not sure if it was aerodynamics or “juju,” but he believes shaving off his moustache might have helped bury a history of narrow podium misses.
Crawford placed fourth in Monday’s downhill race and sixth in the super-G on Tuesday, watching as skiers who started later pushed him from medal positions.
Believing it might be bringing him bad luck, Crawford shaved his moustache for the combined competition.
“I honestly shaved it because I felt it wasn’t getting me on the podium,” he said. “It was a little bit of a juju thing. Maybe it was the reason, maybe not. I definitely look a lot younger.”
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