Ollie Martin, a 16-year-old snowboarder from Colorado, capped a breakout season by winning two medals at the World Championships in Switzerland.
Martin followed a bronze in slopestyle last week by winning bronze in big air on Friday.
He is the second-youngest U.S. snowboarder to win a world championships medal after Arielle Gold, who took halfpipe gold in 2013 at a younger 16.
Martin made his World Cup debut this season. In slopestyle, he placed 49th and 53rd in his first two World Cups, then won a World Cup in Calgary in his third start.
In Friday’s big air final, Martin landed a frontside 1800 (77.50) and a backside 1800 (83.25) on his first two runs to go into second place. By the time of his third and final run, he was in fourth.
Then Martin improved on his frontside 1800 with an 88.50, moving into third behind Japan’s gold and silver medalists Ryoma Kimata and Taiga Hasegawa.
Kimata, a prior Youth Olympic and world junior champion, earned his first major big air title on the senior level. Hasegawa is the 2023 World champion and 2024 X Games champion.
Su Yiming of China, the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, was eliminated in qualifying.
Japan swept the women’s big air medals with Kokomo Murase, Reira Iwabuchi and Mari Fukada.
Austrian Anna Gasser, who won the first two Olympic women’s big gold medals, was sixth in what’s expected to be her last worlds. Gasser has repeated that she plans to retire after the Milan Cortina Games.
No Americans made the final.
Earlier, Italian Michela Moioli and Canadian Eliot Grondin won their first world titles in snowboard cross.
Moioli, the 2018 Olympic gold medalist, edged 2021 World champion Charlotte Bankes of Great Britain in a photo finish as both fell across the finish line.
American Lindsey Jacobellis, the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, did not compete this season and last week announced she is pregnant.
Grondin, the 2022 Olympic men’s silver medalist, took gold over Loan Bozzolo of France. Austrian Alessandro Hämmerle, the 2022 Olympic champion, took bronze on Friday.
Americans finished fifth (Nick Baumgartner), sixth (Nathan Pare) and seventh (Jake Vedder).
Worlds continue Saturday with finals in halfpipe (featuring two-time Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim) and the team snowboard cross event.
NBC airs highlights of The Snow League, the new snowboard halfpipe competition series founded by Shaun White, on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET.
