LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Su Yiming sat in the snow at the bottom of the snowboarding course, tears rolling down his cheeks. So close to winning China its first gold at the Milan Cortina Games, he still had a long wait to endure.
Luckily for Su, one by one his rivals either fell or came up short of his winning score.
Another Olympic medal for Su in the Italian Alps, and medal No. 4 in an incredibly successful and still young career for the former child actor.
Su celebrated his 22nd birthday with a second career gold medal on Wednesday. Su was the winner of an error-prone men’s slopestyle final, when he was the only one of the 12 finalists to complete his three runs through the course’s rails and jumps without any falls or major errors.
The tension seemed almost too much for Su after he failed to improve his best score of of 82.41 points on his third run. He knew that he had left the door open. That was when he wiped his cheeks while watching seven opponents each take their final shot — and fail to better his mark.
Moments later, those tears turned to an expression of joy when he stepped onto the top spot on the podium. He had given China is first gold of these Games and medals No. 6 and 7 of the country’s overall medal tally.
Su burst onto the Olympic stage when he won gold in big air and silver in slopestyle at the Beijing 2022 Games. Last week, he took bronze in big air at the Livigno snowboarding park.
Taiga Hasegawa was second with his best score of 82.13 and added to Japan’s haul of seven snowboarding medals in Livigno.
American rider Jake Canter, 22, claimed the bronze in his first Games.
Mark McMorris of Canada, a three-time bronze medalist, finished eighth two weeks after being concussed in training. He had a hard fall on his third run but bounced back up.
The Livigno slopestyle course consists of three rail elements and three jumps. Judges score riders on their creativity and execution of tricks and their routine as a whole. Riders got three chances to perform their routines with only their best score counting.
The women’s slopestyle final is later on Wednesday.
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