Gold medalist Gaon Choi of South Korea poses on the podium after the Women's Snowboard Halfpipe of the Snowboarding competitions at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, in Livigno, Italy, Thursday. EPA-Yonhap
MILAN — The way South Korean snowboarder Choi Gaon bounced back from a huge fall to grab an improbable gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on a snowy Thursday in northern Italy was a microcosm of how her career has evolved over the years.
Shaking off a serious fall that could have ended her dreams, the 17-year-old Choi won the women's halfpipe title in her Winter Games debut with 90.25 points at Livigno Snow Park in Livigno, some 140 kilometers north of Milan. It was South Korea's first gold medal of this year's Winter Games and also the country's very first gold medal in a snow sport.
Korean American icon Chloe Kim took the silver medal with 88.00 points, coming up short of becoming the first snowboarder to win three straight Olympic gold medals. Mitsuki Ono of Japan got the bronze with 85.00 points.
The 12 finalists each performed three runs and only the best score of the three counted. And Choi got her winning score in her final opportunity.
She fell hard while trying to land her second move during her first run, hitting the lip with her board and tumbling down the vertical wall. She stayed down on the flat section for a few minutes while being tended to by the medics on the scene.
After earning just 10.00 points, Choi summoned enough strength to move off the U-shaped structure under her own power but quickly dropped to the ground again in apparent pain.
And before her second run, the dreaded "DNS (Did Not Start)" sign flashed next to Choi's name. And considering the look of her fall, no one would have been surprised if Choi had decided to withdraw right then and there.
Instead, Choi came back out to the hill for her second run. She had the backing of a supportive crowd but failed to complete her first move.
When the teenager returned for the third and final run, few would have imagined Choi had enough left in her tank, physically or mentally, to even complete her run, let alone contend for a medal.
Source: Korea Times News
