Milan: Snowboarder Lee Chaeun finished in sixth place in the men's halfpipe event at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on Friday, as his late-gasp rally wasn't enough to put him on the podium. Lee, 19, scored 87.50 points in the final at Livigno Snow Park in Livigno, some 140 kilometers north of Milan. Yuto Totsuka of Japan won the gold medal with 95.00 points, and Scotty James took the silver medal with 93.50 points. Another Japanese athlete, Ryusei Yamada, got the bronze medal with 92.00 points.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Lee and the 11 other finalists each performed three times, and only the best score of the three counted as their final score. The highest and lowest of the six judges' scores were discarded after each run. Lee earned his score in the third run after failing to complete his first two attempts. In halfpipe, boarders perform acrobatic spins, flips, and board grabs on a 22-foot, U-shaped structure. They are judged on the degree of difficulty, height, and execution of their moves.
Lee, the 2023 world champion and the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic gold medalist, fell trying to land his third move of the first run, a frontside triple cork 1620 -- involving three backward flips and 4 1/2 rotations. He earned only 24.75 points with it. In the second run, Lee had a wobbly landing on his third trick, a frontside double cork 1440 with a tail grab -- featuring two flips with four full rotations and a grab of the board's tail -- and didn't have enough momentum to execute the remaining two moves. Lee once again settled for 24.75 points.
With his medal hopes hanging by a thread, Lee nailed all five of his moves in his final run, including the difficult frontside triple cork 1620, but with four boarders already sitting at 90 points or higher, Lee received 87.50 points. He was in fifth place following his final run and finished one spot lower at the end. Lee had a tough act to follow, as his event came 24 hours after fellow South Korean boarder Choi Gaon captured the women's halfpipe gold medal. In a valiant effort after taking a nasty fall during her first run, Choi scored 92.50 points in her third run to hold off Korean American superstar Chloe Kim, who was trying to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals.