Slopestyle, Men1

The gold and bronze medal-winners from the slopestyle event at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics were not in Beijing in 2022, leaving silver medalist, and 2014 bronze medalist, Nick Goepper of the United States as the only returning podium finisher from that tournament. Since then, he had been the bronze medalist and the 2019 World Championships and the victor at the 2021 Winter X Games. The most recent World and Winter X Champion was Switzerland’s Andri Ragettli, who had also taken the Winter X title in 2020. Leading the most recent World Cup rankings was his compatriot Fabian Bösch, the 2015 World Champion.

Ragettli topped the qualification round rankings, with Goepper third and Birk Ruud of Norway in between. Ruud was better known as a big air specialist, having won that event in Beijing, but he had also been the slopestyle runner-up at the 2019 World Championships. Bösch was lower on the list, qualifying in 10th.

It turned out that two of the three medalists were determined in the first run, where American Alex Hall achieved the highest score of the tournament and the only one over 90, with a difficult pretzel trick. Hall was the 2021 World bronze medalist, as well as the 2019 Winter X Games champion. The only other skier to perform exceptionally was three-time Olympian Jesper Tjäder of Sweden, whose jump of 85.35 would be good enough for bronze. In the second run, however, he was outperformed by Goepper, who captured the silver medal, while Ragettli had a best jump that was only good enough for fourth. No one else received above 80 points, with Ruud finishing fifth and Bösch sixth.