Halfpipe, Women

American Chloe Kim was the defending gold medalist and a heavy favorite, having won the 2019 and 2021 World Championships. Other medal contenders were expected to be Chinese star Cai Xuetong, World Champion in 2015 and 2017, her teammate Liu Jiayu, the 2009 World Champion and PyeongChang 2018 runner-up, Spain’s Queralt Castellet, a Worlds medal winner in 2015 and 2021, and the Japanese sisters Ruki and Sena Tomita, both World Cup medalists this season.

Kim took most of the suspense out of the competition. She led the qualifying with her first run of 87.75 and in the final posted 94.00 on the first run, which would hold up to defend her gold medal. Kim became only the sixth snowboarder to defend an individual title, and the second woman, after fellow American Jamie Anderson, who did it in slopestyle in 2014-2018.

Behind Kim Castellet took silver based on her second run of 90.25 and Sena Tomita won bronze with 88.25 on run two. Tomita’s sister, Ruki, finished fifth, also behind Cai Xuetong.

Castellet became the second woman representing Spain to claim an Olympic medal at the Winter Olympics, after Alpine skier Blanca Fernández Ochoa won bronze in the women’s slalom at Albertville 1992. She also became the oldest woman to win an Olympic medal in the women’s halfpipe event at 32 years, 238 days.