History was made in women’s snowboarding halfpipe at Phoenix Snow Park Tuesday. 17 year old Chloe Kim of the United States clinched the gold putting down a big score followed by a victory lap at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. China’s Jiayu Liu took the silver with American Arielle Gold made a comeback from her first two runs to capture the bronze.
The United States had four members of the snowboard team to qualify for the finals with defending bronze medalist Kelly Clark vying to get another one or better. The Long Beach teen had the best score of any of her teammates with a 95.50 putting her in the best spot to achieve at her best. She beat Liu by more than seven points and would bring big moves on the day to set the bar high.
Gold started things off and went for the 1080 early only to blow the run overall. Clark followed up with a good score hitting the front side 1080 with enough combinations to get the competition started with a 76.25. Japan’s Haruna Matsumoto was the first to get close to her score putting some big front side 900 followed by a cab 720 that gave her a 70, but the best was yet to come.
Liu overtook Clark with an 85.50 with big 720’s and a lot of speed an air that was impressive for the first Chinese snowboarder competing on the big stage. Kim was last to go and got huge air right off the pipe with a front side 1080 and a front side 900 right after. Kim went into it landing a mctwist and corked out 720 that nailed it for a 93.75 finishing the first run above everyone else.
Embed from Getty Images
In the second run, Gold took a shot at redeeming herself nailing the 1080 into the switch front side 720. A Michalchuk finished her run that was good enough to get her into fourth place behind Clark. The 34-year-old veteran went right after Gold and came in with big air nailing the front side 1080 stomp. With plenty of old school moves, Clark earned herself an 81.75 that kept her in third.
Matsumoto’s second saw her put down a front side 900 and a 1080 but the 720 didn’t work out in the end to keep her out of the running. Liu came out with the same routine that awarded her a better score of 89.75 but not enough to challenge Kim. The American responded with big momentum with two 1080s but unable to land the second one fully. She took a 41.50 but still remained in first with one final run to go. Many competitors that sat under with a score of 50 had one last chance to impress the judges and fight for a medal.
Gold came out with a mission to get into medal contention after her solid second run. With the same elements as her previous run, Gold nailed everything for an 85.75 that put her in bronze medal position. It out Clark under pressure to top her teammate and did it with a 1080 and a Cab 720 but it didn’t get her in front of Gold earning an 83.50 concluding her career in a fifth Olympics.
The wipeout went to Australia’s Emily Arthur who went in for the 720 before slamming down the bottom part of the pipe that had her down for a bit. She got up to board down to the end showing signs of a busted lip on her final run. Xuetong Cai of China had her best run of the day but didn’t get enough to near a medal finishing fifth.
Matsumoto put down a front side 900 followed by a big front side 1080. A 720 was also part of her routine but none of them were landed clean as she finished sixth overall. Liu had one final opportunity to beat Kim or take the silver. She had three big tricks but couldn’t nail the 1080 that would have given her a shot. It sealed the deal for the 17-year-old American who clinched the gold but still had to come down the pipe.
She had fun by nailing back to back 1080s followed by a Hockenflip and a mctwist that gave her a 98.25 beating her own score.
No comments:
Post a Comment