American Hall wins freeski slopestyle Olympic gold
Alex Hall of the United States won the men's freeski slopestyle gold at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday, taking the title ahead of countryman Nick Goepper.
Hall claimed the lead with a first-run score of 90.01 and that was good enough to keep him there for the rest of the competition.
"I'm just stoked to land a run and come out here on a beautiful day like today and enjoy it, have fun with it, show the world what I do as a skier, why I enjoy it, the creativity and thinking outside the box," said the 23-year-old.
"I honestly can’t believe I landed that run -– it's the best run I've ever done."
Teammate Nick Goepper took silver, his third Olympic medal, and Sweden's Jesper Tjader won bronze.
Goepper put down a big second run to claim his third Olympic medal.
The U.S. team has had at least one medalist in each of the three times this event has been contested in the Olympics, with a sweep in 2014 and Nick Goepper medaling four years ago.
Goepper, who took bronze in the event at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and silver four years later in Pyeongchang, was second on 86.48.
Goepper said he felt he "deserved it" for the work he had put in.
"Even being at the top of my game, I'm still second-guessing myself a little bit," said the 27-year-old.
"So for it to pay off in this way, based on how I've been taking care of myself the last year, is validating."
Sweden's Jesper Tjader won bronze on 85.35.
He made unique use of the second jump, a mass of snow that offers five ways to take off. Hall entered the jump backward, spun 720, nose buttered off the crest of the jump by planting his skis and launching into another 540.
On his last jump, Hall hit a double cork 1080 but pretzeled it – or basically rewound the spin – 180 degrees before landing.
In 2018, Hall finished 16th in his first Olympics and didn’t even make the final. But the 23-year-old entered these Games primed for success, having won big air and taking bronze in slopestyle at the X Games last month. Hall also took bronze in slopestyle at the world championship last year.
