Slopestyle, Women

The defending Olympic champion from Switzerland, Sarah Höfflin, returned to Beijing to defend her title, but her best recent results in slopestyle were runner-up at the 2019 and 2020 Winter X Games. Both of those events had been won by Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru, who was champion again in the recent 2022 edition, as well as the 2019 World Championships and the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. She had also won two of the three events in the most recent World Cup season, but had missed 2021 due to injuries. In her absence, China’s Eileen Gu, who had already won the big air event at the Games, had taken the crowns at both the Winter X Games and the World Championships.

Slidaru won the qualifying round, with Gu in third and Johanne Killi of Norway between them. Killi was the Winter X Games bronze medalist in this event in 2016 and 2017 and had been fifth at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Höfflin, meanwhile, did not make the final.

After the first run of the final, Slidaru seemed fully in command, scoring well above her fellow competitors. In the second run, however, Mathilde Gremaud, who had crashed on her first run, managed the highest score of the entire tournament and put herself in the gold medal position. Gremaud had been the runner-up at the last Olympics, but was better known as a big air skier and had earlier earned bronze in that event in Beijing. Nonetheless, despite a valiant effort from Gu in the third run, which saw her come within 0.4 of Gremaud’s score, the Swiss skier remained unbeaten, with Slidaru slipping down to bronze. Killi had weaker runs and placed sixth overall.