South Korea's Choi Ga-on Advances to Snowboard Halfpipe Final in Sixth Place

South Korea's top female snowboarder Choi Ga-on (Sewha Girls' High School) secured a spot in the final after finishing sixth in the qualifying round.

Choi scored 82.25 points at the women's halfpipe qualifying event held at Livigno Snow Park in Italy on Feb. 11 (local time), advancing to the final as the sixth-best among 24 competitors.

Halfpipe is a discipline where judges score aerial maneuvers performed on a tilted semicircular slope while riding a snowboard.

The top 12 athletes advanced to the final based on their better score from two qualifying runs.

The final, which will determine rankings based on the best score from three runs, is scheduled for 3:30 a.m. Korean time on Feb. 13 at the same venue.

Born in 2008, Choi is a promising snowboarder who demonstrated her potential early by winning the X Games, a premier extreme sports competition, in 2023 at a record-youngest age of 14 years and 2 months. After spending a year in rehabilitation due to a back injury in 2024, she recently returned and has dominated international competitions. She is considered the only viable challenger to Korean American Chloe Kim (USA), winner of the 2018 PyeongChang and 2022 Beijing Olympics, in her quest for a third consecutive Olympic gold.

In her first qualifying run, Choi earned 82.25 points with a clean performance starting with a switch backside 720 (launching in the opposite direction of travel while completing two rotations) followed by various technical maneuvers.

In the second run, she attempted higher difficulty with jumps reaching 4.2 meters and 1080-degree rotations, but a mistake on the final landing meant her first-run score stood as her qualifying result.

Chloe Kim comfortably secured her spot in the final with a first-place score of 90.25 points.

Kim, who struggled with a shoulder injury ahead of the Olympics and was unable to compete fully during the World Cup season, appeared to have fully recovered.

In her first run, she was the only competitor to score in the 90s, executing high-difficulty tricks including 1080-degree rotations and a McTwist.

Following Kim, Sara Shimizu (Japan, 87.5 points), Maddie Mastro (USA, 86 points), Ruki Tomita [Gudo Rise] (Japan, 84.75 points), and Cai Xuetong (China, 83 points) finished second through fifth.

Lee Na-yun (Kyung Hee University), who competed alongside Choi in this event, scored 35 points in her first run after experiencing knee pain. She was unable to attempt her second run and was eliminated in 22nd place.