Halfpipe, Men

Like men’s slopestyle, the men’s halfpipe event had been contested at the Olympics only once before, in 2014, and at those Games it had been won by American David Wise. Wise had been somewhat uneven since Sochi, but had recently won the superpipe at the 2018 Winter X Games and was seen as being at the top of his game going into the PyeongChang Olympics. The silver and bronze medalists from 2014, Mike Riddle of Canada and Kévin Rolland of France respectively, were also present in Sochi, and had repeated their podium finishes at the most recent edition of the World Championships, where American Aaron Blunck had taken gold.

The United States, led by Blunck, took the top three spots in the qualifying round, but Wise was not among them, finishing far down in the pack at eighth, behind Riddle and Roland. In second was Alex Ferreira, runner-up at both the 2016 and 2018 Winter X Games superpipe, while Torin Yater-Wallace, the most recent Winter X bronze medalist, was a bit behind in third. Nonetheless, all of the favorites advanced to the final and there were few surprises overall.

The same could not be said, however, about the final itself. Rolland had it the worst, and failed to complete any of his runs, suffering a terrible-looking crash in his final attempt. Yater-Wallace had an unimpressive first run, and was unable to complete the final two, also landing hard on his third. Ferreira, on the other hand, had an excellent final round, not only being one of just two competitors to complete all three runs successfully, but also scoring over 90 points in each and improving on his total each time. With a final score of 96.40, it looked as if Ferreira had clinched the title, but an outstanding third run from Wise, who had crashed on his previous two attempts, saw him surpass his compatriot with an outstanding performance and land in the gold medal position. Thus Ferreira had to settle for silver, while 16 year-old Nico Porteous of New Zealand took bronze on the strength of his impressive second run.