With Chloe Kim sitting out, world gets pre-Olympic view of Asian dominance on the halfpipe
With US star Chloe Kim again expected to win gold, battle for second expected to come down to riders from South Korea, Japan
Chloe Kim sat out with an injury. Shaun White has been retired for four years. Without them, the world got a peek at what snowboarding on the halfpipe looks like heading into the Winter Olympics: it is now a sport dominated by Japanese athletes, with other Asian stars in the mix.
Japan’s Ryusei Yamada and Korea’s Gaon Choi won the men’s and women’s World Cup events Friday at Copper Mountain on a blustery day that featured only one American on either podium: 18-year-old Bea Kim, who took third in the women’s contest, ahead of Japan’s Sena Tomita.
America’s Chloe Kim competed in qualifying Wednesday but suffered an undisclosed injury in the lead-up to the final and sat out. US Ski and Snowboard didn’t provide details about the injury. This was the only pre-Olympic event Kim had signed up for, and how missing this final might impact her coming schedule remains to be seen.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist is the only US halfpipe rider already qualified for Milan Cortina, as the American team looks for someone to join her as the sport’s headliner now that White, the three-time Olympic champion, has retired.
Without Kim in the line-up, the women’s contest played out like what’s expected to be a pretty good battle for second in Italy come February.
Choi’s win comes one week after her victory at Secret Garden in China. She was one of the few to try a 1080-degree jump and the only one to land one as part of a clean run over the 16 trips the eight healthy women in the contest took down the halfpipe.