Chloe Kim won her first event of the Olympic season, while Ayumu Hirano landed the first triple cork in halfpipe competition at Dew Tour on Sunday.
Kim landed a pair of 1080s on the last run of the women’s event at Copper Mountain, Colorado, to overtake Spain’s Queralt Castellet on her third and final run.
Kim scored 96 points after falling on her second 1080 attempt on each of her first two runs.
“I’m never putting myself in that situation again. That was horrible,” she said in a finish area interview.
Kim has won all five of her starts since returning from a 19-month break between riding a snowboard last season.
She is set to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team later this week, when the first riders clinch spots via world rankings.
Maddie Mastro, the other American Olympic medal contender, crashed hard on her first run, banging her helmet-protected head on the lip of the halfpipe. She did not take her second and third runs.
She was bleeding below her left eye and taken off the mountain by sled. Contest officials said she suffered an ankle injury.
Mastro, the last woman to beat Kim at the March 2019 Burton U.S. Open, had the highest score in qualifying.
DEW TOUR: Full Results
Later Sunday, the two-time Olympic silver medalist Hirano became the first halfpipe rider to land a triple cork in competition. Hirano did a frontside triple cork 1440 on his last run, though he crashed out on his next trick and finished fifth overall.
Shaun White finished seventh. White, after taking a three-year competition break after winning his third Olympic title in 2018, has finished fourth, eighth and seventh in three competitions.
It marks the first time he has missed the podium in three straight halfpipe contests in nearly 20 years, according to his federation profile results histories.
White said after his last run that it was his last time competing at Dew Tour. White, 35, previously said that he believes Beijing will be his last Olympics but has not said specifically when he plans to retire.
White said before this season that learning the triple cork was necessary to do well at the Olympics. White’s coach, J.J. Thomas, said that he saw several riders land triple corks at a preseason training camp in Switzerland, including some of Japan’s biggest stars like Hirano. White tried and failed to learn a triple cork in 2012 and 2013, then shelved it. He has never attempted one in competition.
Another Japanese Olympic medal favorite, Yuto Tostuka, won Dew Tour without attempting a triple cork.
American Taylor Gold, a 2014 Olympian who sat out the 2018 Olympic season due to injuries, finished second. White, Gold and Chase Josey are favorites to make the U.S. Olympic team of up to four men, which will be finalized in January.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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.@ChloeKim saves the best for last on her third and final run to win top honors in the women's superpipe final, presented by @Toyota. #dewtour #snowboarding
Tune in for the men's superpipe final coming up next on https://t.co/HmdVNs0tGD . pic.twitter.com/fUwNdqPPUS— Dew Tour (@DewTour) December 19, 2021
Ayumu Hirano puts down the first triple cork in competition. #dewtour #snowboarding 🏂🇯🇵💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/bt30itHRT2
— Dew Tour (@DewTour) December 19, 2021
