Yoo Seung-eun (Seongbok High School), who won South Korea's first-ever snowboard big air bronze medal at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, earned a bronze medal in the halfpipe event at a domestic competition after returning home.
Yoo scored 55 points in the women's under-18 snowboard freestyle halfpipe event at the 107th National Winter Sports Festival held at Phoenix Park in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province on January 25, finishing third behind Heo Young-hyun (Unam High School, 82 points) and Choi Seo-woo (Inil Girls' High School, 72 points).
Snowboard halfpipe is the event in which Choi Ga-on (Sehwa Girls' High School) won South Korea's first-ever gold medal in snow sports at the recent Olympics. While big air is Yoo's primary discipline, she had never failed to win the halfpipe at the National Winter Sports Festival. In 2022 and 2023, she won gold medals in the women's under-16 category with scores of 81.25 and 92.66 points respectively, and last year she took gold in the women's under-18 category with 83.50 points. However, she finished third at this year's competition.
On January 10 in Livigno, Italy, Yoo won the bronze medal in the women's snowboard big air at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, becoming the first South Korean female snowboarder to stand on an Olympic podium. Big air is an event where athletes descend a slope exceeding 30 meters on their boards, launch off a large jump, and compete on jumps, rotations, landing, and distance.
At the National Winter Sports Festival, big air and slopestyle are not held among snowboard freestyle events. Only halfpipe is conducted, where judges score athletes' aerial performances on a half-cylindrical slope to determine rankings.
Meanwhile, Heo Young-hyun (Unam High School) won the women's under-18 snowboard halfpipe event with a score of 82.00 points. Choi Seo-woo (Inil Girls' High School) took the silver medal with 76.00 points.
In the men's under-18 snowboard halfpipe event held on the same day, Choi Woo-jin (Seoul High School), the older brother of Choi Ga-on, competed and took first place with 83.33 points. Lee Ji-oh (Yangpyeong High School) finished second with 80.66 points, and Kim Geon-hee (Siheung Maehwa High School) placed third with 79 points.
Lee Chae-un (Kyung Hee University), who advanced to the men's halfpipe final at the Winter Olympics and finished sixth, scored 63 points in the men's open division halfpipe, finishing as runner-up behind Lee Jun-sik (Gyeonggi Provincial Sports Council, 76.66 points).