Slopestyle, Men

The favorite was Norwegian Birk Ruud who had won this event at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics, and was the gold medalist at Beijing 2022 in Big Air. He was World Champion in slopestyle in 2023 and 2025. His biggest challengers were thought to be three Americans – Mac Forehand, the 2023 World Championship silver medalist; defending Olympic gold medalist Alex Hall; and Konnor Ralph, a three-time World Cup medalist.

Ruud led the qualifying just ahead of his teammate, Tormod Frostad, and all three USA skiers made the final, but not near the top of qualifiers. In the final Ruud opened with a run of 86.28 to take the lead and that would be the gold medal winning run. Hall came close in round two with 85.75, which would be good enough for the silver medal, while in the final run, New Zealander Luca Harrington scored 85.15 to move onto the podium. After the other skiers had not bettered his opening final mark, Ruud basically had a victory lap on run three and skied down in celebration.

Slopestyle was being held for the fourth time at the Winter Olympics, with all four gold medals going to Norway and the USA, as Joss Christensen won in 2014 and Norway’s Øystein Bråten in 2018. The USA had won the silver medal at all four Winter Olympics, and now had 7 of the 12 medals awarded in the event.