Epic tricks lift US freestyle skiers to one-two Olympic finish

BEIJING: Innovative American freestyle skiers Alex Hall and Nick Goepper landed jaw-dropping tricks on the Secret Garden slopestyle course and won the gold and silver medals at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.

Hall clinched the gold on the first of three runs when he defied gravity with a trick called right double 10 pretzel one.

He spun 900 degrees one way and, as G-forces took over, stopped the spin in midair and spun 180 degrees the other way. He stuck the landing and skied in backward to the finish, earning a score of 90.01.

“I’m just stoked I did it, my best slopestyle ever and for the world to see that,” said Hall, who was born in Alaska, grew up in Switzerland and lives in Utah. “With where our sports been going, a lot of what we do, we call spin to win, and, so, everyone is spinning as much as they can. To take a new approach and do a trick that has almost no rotation but is still really, really hard it was really, really sweet.”

Goepper was so impressive on his second run that he clinched the silver with a score of 86.48. His big trick was a new approach at a double-cork 1440.

American men have won six of nine medals since slopestyle made its Olympic debut in 2014. Goepper added to his silver from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and bronze from the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Also up in the mountains, Mikaela Shiffrin set the fastest time in a downhill training session ahead of the Alpine combined, which will be held on Thursday. That will be the superstar skier’s fifth event and she’s still looking for her first medal.

Those were far better results than down in the city, where the US men’s hockey team was knocked out in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament when it blew a lead in the last minute of regulation and was shut out in a shootout, losing 3-2 to Slovakia.

“I’m just sad it’s over,” U.S. captain Andy Miele said. “Our team battled hard Some­­times those bounces happen in hockey Unfortunate it was on our side.”

Clement Noel claimed France’s first alpine skiing gold medal of these Games when he won the men’s slalom.

Noel’s lightning-quick second run gave him a combined total of 1min 44.09sec to hold off Johannes Strolz, the Austrian former traffic policeman who had already won a gold in the alpine combined event.

“That was one of the most important races in my career,” said 24-year-old Noel. “It’s one shot — one minute and 40 seconds every four years.”

Elvira Oeberg skied fast and shot clean in anchoring Sweden to Olympic gold in the four-woman biathlon. It was the third medal of the Beijing Games for Oeberg, who won silver in the sprint and pursuit races in her Olympic debut.

Norwegian skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo completed a second straight Olympic cross-country sprint double and Victoria Carl of Germany barely edged Swedish rival Jonna Sundling at the line in the women’s race.

Qi Guangpu of China won the gold medal in mens aerials after missing the podium in Sochi and Pyeongchang. Qi was the only competitor to clea­nly land a quintuple-twisting triple back flip in the medal round. Defending champion Oleksandr Abra­menko of Ukraine won silver and Ilia Burov of the Russian team took bronze.

Choi Minjeong of South Korea successfully defended her Olympic title in the 1,500m short track speedskating race while Arianna Fontana of Italy took silver by two-thousandths of a second over Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands. Fontana is the most-decorated short track skater in history with 11 Olympic medals, including three in Beijing.

The Canadian team of Charles Hamelin, Steven Dubois, Jordan Pierre-Gilles and Pascal Dion won the 5,000m relay, the country’s eighth gold medal in the 45-lap race.

With four days of competition remaining, Norway top the medals table with 13 golds, Germany have 10 and the United States have eight.