Feb. 15 (UPI) — Team USA dominated the men’s freeski slopestyle in Beijing on Wednesday with Alex Hall winning gold and Nick Goepper the silver. The bronze was secured by Sweden’s Jasper Tjader.
Hall in his second Olympics appearance won his first medal during his first of three runs down the slopestyle course at Genting Snow Park, scoring a 90.01.
The technical run by Hall that set the bar to beat early in the competition included final a right side double cork 1080 that he transferred into a 900, which is considered a so-called pretzel maneuver for the design it cuts in the air.
“I”m really glad the creativity was able to shine through and then that got rewarded,” Hall told Olympics.com after the event. “A lot of those tricks were really, really hard for me, especially that last one.”
He explained he wasn’t confident he’d be able to land the double cork 1080, but he decided to “go all in.”
“And it somehow worked out on that first run,” he said.
Goepper competing in his third Olympics added a silver to the one he picked up in Pyeongchang in 2018 and a bronze from Sochi in 2014 for his second run for which he scored an impressive 86.48.
In the run, the 27-year-old pulled some solid rail grinds and some technical jumps at the final portion of the course, including a switch double misty 1260 and a double cork 1440.
Tjader won bronze with a score of 85.35 on his first run.
The third American in the competition, Colby Stevenson, finished seventh with a score of 77.41. The Utah resident had sought to crowd the podium with Americans, but couldn’t best his first-run score.
“I gave it everything I had,” he said after he completed his third and final run of the event.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.