Slopestyle, Men

The United States, led by Joss Christensen, had swept the podium in the men’s slopestyle event at the 2014 Winter Olympics, but Christensen was recovering from surgery and could not make the team for 2018. Gus Kenworthy and Nick Goepper, the silver and bronze medalists respectively, were present in PyeongChang and were both contending for medals, with Goepper having a particularly strong claim on the basis of his three gold medals (2013, 2014, and 2015) at the Winter X Games. Another American, McRae Williams, was the 2017 World Champion and Winter X Games runner-up. Among non-Americans, Sweden’s Henrik Harlaut was the most recent Winter X Games champion and Fabian Bösch of Switzerland was the 2015 World Champion; both were challengers for podium spots.

The competition in this event at the 2018 Games was fierce, with eight of the qualifiers posting best scores of over 90 points in the opening round. They were led by Oscar Wester of Sweden, a veteran skier, but one without any major titles to his name. In an additional shocking twist, Williams, Harlaut, and Bösch were all eliminated with mediocre runs. The surprise in the final, meanwhile, came from Norway’s Øystein Bråten, who was the 2017 Winter X Games Champion and the 2018 runner-up. Bråten posted a score of 95.00 on his first run, which was far ahead of the field at that time and was never surpassed, earning him the gold medal.

The competition heated up in the second round with two competitors, Alex Beaulieu-Marchand of Canada and James Woods of Great Britain, both scoring over 90 points. Beaulieu-Marchand had taken bronze at the 2017 Winter X Games, while Woods had done the same at that year’s World Championships. In the final round, however, Goepper came back from two mediocre runs and scored an impressive 93.60, enough to secure silver and leave Beaulieu-Marchand with bronze. Wester crashed twice and left with only a mediocre score while Kenworthy, hampered by recent injuries, was unable to perform to the best of his ability and placed last.