Halfpipe, Women

This event was slightly different in 2010 as it was conducted on a pipe with 22 foot (6.7 m) walls, technically called a superpipe (defined as >16 foot walls). In 2006 the USA had placed 1-2-4 and all three women, Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, and Kelly Clark (in that order), were back in Vancouver, and a sweep seemed possible. Their biggest rival was expected to be China’s Lia Jiayu, who had come out of nowhere in 2009 to win the World Championships and lead the World Cup standings at only 16-years-old. But also to be considered was Australian Torah Bright, the Burton US Open Champion in 2006, 2008, and 2009.

Bright was the leading competitor in the qualifying round, scoring 41.3 and 45.8 on her two runs. She was followed by Clark with 45.4, Spain’s Queralt Castellet on 44.3 and reigning Olympic champion Teter with 42.7. Teter led after the first run in the final with a score of 42.4, ahead of Liu and France’s Sophie Rodriguez. Of the other top qualifiers, both Bright and Clark had fallen and posted low scores, and Castellet was unable to start because of injury. In the second run, both Bright and Clark improved their marks considerably, Bright scoring 45.0 and Clark 42.2 to take the gold and bronze medals. Although Teter put in another good performance on her second run, her score of 39.2 did not better her first run, and she settled for a silver medal. Liu placed fourth while Bleiler struggled on both runs in the final and finished only 11th.