“The best two days of my life,” Gu, who beat all three of the 2018 Olympic slopestyle medalists, said on ABC. She also earned bronze in her X Games debut in Friday’s ski big air, which makes its Olympic debut next year in Beijing, where Gu will be one of the host nation’s biggest stars. Gu, born in San Francisco to an American father and Chinese mother, became the first athlete from China to win an X Games title on Friday, when she took the ski halfpipe. Kim said she has two more contests planned in the near future.Įarlier Saturday, 17-year-old Eileen Gu won her second title in as many days, this time in ski slopestyle. Clark, the 2002 Olympic champion who retired after the 2018 Olympics, owns seven X Games halfpipe titles, but one came in a sister competition in Tignes, France. Kim owns six X Games halfpipe titles, but one came in a sister competition in Oslo. Open (where Kim broke an ankle), finished second on Saturday. Maddie Mastro, who beat Kim at the March 2019 Burton U.S. Instead of each run being scored, eight riders had four runs each in a 30-minute jam session and were ranked based on overall impression.
The X Games format changed since Kim’s last appearance in 2019. Kim is the only woman to ever land back-to-back 1080s, but just like her comeback contest last week, she did not attempt multiple 1080s in a single run. She later revealed that she visited an emergency room a few days earlier with “a really crazy allergic reaction” with her throat closed. “Low key popped some ribs out on the first slam,” was posted on Kim’s Instagram between runs. In the run that put her in first place, Kim landed a frontside 1080, less than 10 minutes after falling on her first big trick attempt. “Really just wanted to go into this season with a new mindset, have fun and try new runs.” “I really was not expecting to podium,” Kim, who went 22 months between contests, said on ESPN.
Kim, who in 2018 became the youngest Olympic halfpipe champion at 17, reclaimed her crown at X Games, the biggest annual snowboard contest, after missing last year’s event while taking freshman classes at Princeton. A few days after an ER visit, Chloe Kim returned from a one-year X Games absence to win her fifth snowboard halfpipe title in Aspen, one shy of Kelly Clark‘s female record in the event.