LIVIGNO, Italy — Chloe Kim fell short in her bid to become the first Olympic snowboarder to win three consecutive gold medals, finishing second to Choi Gaon of South Korea in the women’s halfpipe Thursday.
Choi, 17, dethroned the two-time defending champion with a score of 90.25 on her final run.
Kim had one more shot to get back on top, but the 25-year-old American wiped out on her last of three runs and had to settle for silver. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono claimed bronze.
Kim, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea, had encouraged Choi throughout her young career. Now she has handed over the Olympic title to the teenager she inspired.
«It’s all about passing the torch, so there’s no one else I would have rather stood next to on the podium than her,» Kim said. «I’m so proud of her, and I’m so excited to see what she does next.»
«I think that there was a lot of conversation happening about the three-peat,» she said. «I was thinking about it before, but I think the minute I injured myself, I was like, that doesn’t matter anymore. So this feels like a win to me because a month ago it didn’t seem too possible.»
Another gold medal celebration had looked likely after Kim scored 88 points on her first run, while Choi and most of the other finalists wiped out.
But Kim couldn’t stay upright on either of her remaining runs, and her score from the first wasn’t good enough.
Kim is not alone in letting the milestone of golds in three consecutive Winter Olympics slip away at these Games. Czech Ester Ledecka fell short in Alpine snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom, as did Austria’s Anna Gasser in big air. Both were two-time defending champions.
American snowboarding great Shaun White won three gold medals on the halfpipe, but not consecutively. He won in 2006, 2010 and 2018. He finished fourth in 2014.
White was in the crowd Thursday and cringed after Kim fell on her final run. Kim’s boyfriend, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, was also in her cheering section, along with Snoop Dogg. Like many in the crowd, they had gathered to watch one of the biggest names in snowboarding go for Olympic history.
Instead, they watched Choi wipe away tears as she held up her medal, one step up on the podium from Kim, the rider who has been her idol.
