The Japan Times - Chloe Kim misses Olympic milestone, Ukrainian disqualfied over helmet

Kim appeared to be on the brink of becoming the first snowboarder in history to win three Olympic golds at consecutive Games after posting a score of 88.00 in her first run of the halfpipe as the snow fell in Livigno.

South Korean 17-year-old Choi Gaon, who lacks Kim's Olympic pedigree but is the World Cup leader this season, recovered from a brutal fall on her first run to post a competition-high 90.25 on her third attempt.

That left Kim having to pull out an outstanding last run, but competing last she crashed, handing gold to Choi and ending one of the most dominant win streaks in winter sports.

Choi, the same age as Kim when the American won her first gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, is the first athlete from South Korea to win an Olympic gold medal in snow sports.

Kim said she was proud of her silver after dislocating her shoulder weeks ago.

"Today might've been my eighth day on snow this entire winter," she said. "I haven't been able to practice as much as I would've liked. Just proud of myself for putting it down today."

She praised Choi, saying: "It was so inspirational. It's so funny because she won her first Olympic gold medal at the same age as I did. It's such a full-circle moment."

Earlier, Federica Brignone crowned a sensational comeback from injury by taking the women's super-G gold, to the delight host nation Italy.

Brignone, at 35, became the oldest ever Olympic champion in alpine skiing, surpassing Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal by a few months. The Italian also surpassed Lindsey Vonn, who is coached by Svindal, as the oldest female medallist.

It was a remarkable result for Brignone, coming less than a year after she suffered a double leg fracture in April 2025.

"For so long, I couldn't walk, and I couldn't put pressure on my leg. I was telling myself, 'how can I ski at more than 100 kilometres an hour?'" said Brignone.

"But every day, I was telling myself, 'tomorrow, it will be much better'."

- Helmet ban -

The most controversial issue of this Games came to a head when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Ukraine's Heraskevych for refusing to drop his insistence on wearing a helmet carrying pictures of Ukrainian sportsmen and women killed since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Gestures of a political nature during competition are forbidden under the Olympic charter and the IOC said Heraskevych had failed "to adhere to the IOC athlete expression guidelines".

"This is (the) price of our dignity," Heraskevych reacted on X.

The IOC had tried unsuccessfully to find a compromise, allowing him to wear a plain black armband during competition and show off the helmet in post-race interviews.

IOC chief Kirsty Coventry met with Heraskevych, who was one of Ukraine's flag bearers in the opening ceremony, early on Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to change his mind about the helmet before his competition started.

A tearful Coventry said afterwards she "really wanted to see him race today" but that "no (political) messaging is allowed".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Heraskevych's disqualification played "into the hands of aggressors".

Australian freestyle skier Cooper Woods won Olympic men's moguls gold in dramatic fashion, with a tiebreak needed to separate him from Canadian great Mikael Kingsbury.

The athletes both scored 83.71 in their final runs in Livigno, meaning the marks they achieved for their turns came into play.

Woods' mark of 48.40 was marginally better than Kingsbury's 47.70, giving the 25-year-old a first Olympic medal.

Despite the pain of missing out on gold, Kingsbury became the first athlete to win medals in the same freestyle skiing event at four straight Olympics.

After Brignone's success, there was a second Italian triumph of the day thanks to speed skater Francesca Lollobrigida.

Lollobrigida won the women's 5,000m gold just five days after smashing the Olympic record to also win the 3,000m.

T.Sasaki--JT