Halfpipe, Women

With four of the world’s top riders on their Olympic team, the Americans were looking to sweep the halfpipe podium. The heavy gold medal favourite was Chloe Kim, who was unable to compete at Sochi 2014 because she was too young. In 2016, Kim became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s in a halfpipe run and won double gold at the Youth Olympic Winter Games (slopestyle, halfpipe).

PyeongChang 2018 was American Kelly Clark’s fifth Olympic Games. At the age of 34, she was already the most decorated Olympic snowboarder ever with three career medals (one gold, two bronze) never having finished lower than fourth. The first to ever land the frontside 1080 in a competition, Clark was still one of the top women in the sport.

The rising American star in women’s halfpipe, Maddie Mastro was a consistent podium finisher all season long, winning an X-Games bronze medal. Named to the USA team for Sochi 2014, Arielle Gold injured her shoulder in practice and had to withdraw, but arrived in PyeongChang as the X-Games silver medalist.

The best of the rest included two Chinese three-time Olympians Cai Xuetong and Liu Jiayu, and Spain’s Queralt Castellet, competing at her fourth Olympic Winter Games.

The top qualifier going into the finals was Kim - a favourite with the home fans because of her South Korean parents. She wowed the crowd hitting back-to-back 1080s and had already secured gold with her first run score, but improved to win by eight-and-a-half points racking up the two highest scores in the final to become the youngest halfpipe medalist in Olympic Winter Games history.

Liu, the former world champion, earned 89.75 points in her second run of three to take the silver, winning the first medal for China at the Games. She also became the second Asian woman to win a snowboard medal at the Olympic Winter Games, after Japan’s Tomoka Takeuchi who won silver in the women’s parallel giant slalom at Sochi 2014. Gold, who had to overcome the fear of getting hurt at Sochi 2014, dislocated her shoulder in practice in PyeongChang 2018, but pushed through to win bronze on her final run edging out her American teammate Clark.