Chloe Kim thwarted in bid for Olympic halfpipe three-peat by South Korea’s Choi Gaon | Winter Olympics 2026
Light snowfall at Livigno Snow Park on Thursday evening helped produce one of the biggest Olympic upsets in snowboarding history, as Chloe Kim’s attempt to become the first rider to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the halfpipe ended in failure.
Kim finished with a best score of 88.00 from her opening, settling for silver behind surprise winner Choi Gaon of South Korea, whose heroic third run after a hard fall in her first scored 90.25 and rewrote the Olympic record book. Japan’s Mitsuki Ono won bronze.
For a sport that spent nearly a decade orbiting Kim’s technical and competitive standard, the result felt seismic — not because she rode poorly, but because someone finally managed to bring together the perfect combination of risk, execution and timing on the night when it mattered most.
The defeat ends one of the most dominant Olympic streaks in modern winter sports. Kim entered the Games as the reigning two-time Olympic champion and heavy favorite to complete a hat-trick that no snowboarder had ever achieved. Instead, the story belongs to someone else.
The victory came less than six weeks after Kim dislocated his left shoulder, an injury that threatened to derail his Olympic preparation. Instead, the corset she wore throughout the competition became part of the story: a visible reminder of the vulnerability of an athlete who spent most of her career appearing almost untouchable.
“I’m just happy to be here,” Kim said earlier this week after leading qualifying. “For a little while, it didn’t seem too certain.”
Kim first arrived as a global phenomenon at Pyeongchang 2018, when she became the youngest woman to win Olympic gold in snowboarding. Four years later, in Beijing, she defended her title while navigating the expectations of being the face of a sport. In Livigno, the challenge was different: maintaining dominance while the rest of the peloton spent eight years trying to catch up.
