South Korean Gaon Choi broke Chloe Kim‘s record as the youngest X Games snowboard halfpipe champion, winning at age 14 on Saturday in Aspen, Colorado.
Choi, the world junior champion, landed three different 900s in her third of four runs to overtake two-time U.S. Olympian Maddie Mastro. She then landed a frontside 1080 in her fourth run.
In a format introduced three years ago, athletes were ranked on overall impression of their best run over the course of a jam session rather than scoring individual runs.
Choi became the first Winter X Games medalist for South Korea, a nation with a best Olympic halfpipe finish of 14th. She is six months younger than Kim was when Kim won the first of her five X Games Aspen halfpipe titles in 2015.
“I began snowboarding because of Chloe Kim and now almost being near her level when she was 14, it feels weird that I can see a possibility that I would go beyond her some day,” Choi said through a translator, according to organizers. “I’m already starting to look forward to the next Olympics.”
Kim, the daughter of South Korean immigrants, posted that she has known Choi for almost a decade.
“I feel like a proud Mom,” she posted. “The future of snowboarding’s in good hands.”
Kim, the only woman to land back-to-back 1080s in a contest, is taking this season off after repeating as Olympic champion but plans to return ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games.
Mastro, who was 12th and 13th at the last two Olympics, landed her patented double crippler (two back flips) on two of her runs, but it wasn’t enough. She was the last woman to beat Kim at the 2019 U.S. Open.
Earlier, American Colby Stevenson earned his second X Games ski slopestyle title, one year after taking silver in ski big air’s Olympic debut. Stevenson, who was one millimeter from brain damage in a 2016 car crash, capped his first two of four runs with 1620s, according to commentators, taking the lead for good after the latter.
American Alex Hall, the Olympic slopestyle champion, was seventh.
Later, Norway’s Marcus Kleveland three-peated in men’s snowboard big air, while Olympic champion Su Yiming of China took bronze.
Japan’s Reira Iwabuchi won women’s snowboard big air, highlighted by a triple underflip. The field lacked 2021 X Games champion Jamie Anderson (pregnant) and 2018 and 2022 Olympic champion Anna Gasser of Austria. Iwabuchi was fourth at the last two Olympics.
Gasser withdrew moments before the competition after suffering what she called a mild concussion in Friday’s slopestyle, where she was seventh.
Zoe Atkin became the first British female skier to win an X Games title, taking the halfpipe in the absence of Olympic champion Eileen Gu of China. Atkin had two 720s in her fourth and final run to overtake Olympic bronze medalist Rachael Karker of Canada.
Atkin, the 20-year-old and Stanford student and younger sister of 2018 Olympic slopestyle bronze medalist Izzy Atkin, was ninth at the Olympics and never previously won an X Games medal.
Gu withdrew on Friday with a knee injury from a training crash.
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Gaon Choi 🇰🇷 wins gold in Monster Energy Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe at #XGames Aspen 2023! pic.twitter.com/wKkjkTh1Jk
— X Games (@XGames) January 28, 2023
.@colbyskier 🇺🇸 wins gold in Jeep Men’s Ski Slopestyle at #XGames Aspen 2023! pic.twitter.com/CLCFVqKedo
— X Games (@XGames) January 28, 2023