In her first run in the X Games SuperPipe in Aspen, 18-year-old Chloe Kim fell, sitting down on the wall on her final hit. What the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic halfpipe gold medalist did next was equal to the mettle seen in champions well beyond her years.
While stuck in last place, Kim dropped in for her second attempt, opening with a frontside 1080, followed by a cab 720, into a frontside 540 and topping it all off with a McTwist. For Kim, and the incredible amplitude she is best known for, the run was uncharacteristically textbook. Therein lies the maturity shown by Kim. When she was down, she did what she needed to do to get win, despite wanting to leave the crowd breathless.
“I honestly wanted to do a complete[ly] different run,” Kim said after receiving her fifth X Games SuperPipe gold. “I was so bummed I wasn’t able to do it, so you know, [I’m] looking forward to the next one and super excited to do some cool stuff for you guys.”
Kim is now the first X Games athlete to win five gold medals by age 18.
Kim’s second run received 84.00 points from the judges, and in a best-of-three run event, hers was tops. Behind Kim taking silver and bronze where Spain’s Queralt Castellet and China’s Cai Xuetong.
The feel good story on Saturday came in men’s snowboard slopestyle, when Canada’s Mark McMorris needed to pull off some late-day magic to win gold. The two-time Olympic bronze medalist went big and pulled off a flawless third run for the win.
“This is dream-come-true type [expletive],” a surprised McMorris said while clutching his gold medal.
McMorris also won snowboard Big Air silver on Friday night in Aspen.
McMorris was severely injured in a 2017 backcountry snowboarding accident when he collided with a tree. His recovery and return to competition, which included a bronze medal win at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, seem to have exceeded even his own expectations.
