Not even faulty equipment could keep David Wise from defending his Olympic title in Thursday’s men’s ski halfpipe.
The American overcame falls on his first two runs due to issues with his ski binding to put down the highest score of the day with a 97.20 in his final attempt and win the gold ahead of US team-mate Alex Ferreira (96.40) and New Zealand teenager Nico Porteous (94.80), who took silver and bronze respectively.
“I really wanted to land a run,” Wise said. “I walked out of a ski twice. For both runs I walked out of a ski. Not really a mistake I made, but it was just unfortunate, so I had to put it all down on the third run, and I pulled it off.
“I’m honestly just in disbelief right now. Winning, losing, whatever, just the fact that I landed that run in the moment when it needed to happen, on that that third run, just felt so good.”
Wise, 27, landed double corks in all four directions on the gold-clinching run, repeating as Olympic champion following a trying four years that included three concussions in a two-year span and the deaths of his father-in-law and grandmother.
His clutch final run nudged Olympic debutant Ferreira out of gold while Porteous’ second-run score held up for a surprise bronze.
Porteous, who becomes the third-youngest man to win a individual Winter Olympics medal after the United States’ Scott Allen (a figure skating bronze in 1964) and Japan’s Ayumu Hirano (a snowboard halfpipe silver in 2014), said he was vomiting at the top of the course with nerves ahead of his second run and leaned on help from his sports psychologist, who, he said, is an “absolute legend”.
“I’m pretty confused about what’s going on. I just can’t believe it,” Porteous said. “I honestly don’t know why it went so well. I honestly have no clue. I’ve been a mixed bag of emotions lately, I haven’t been really getting much sleep. On the night of quals I didn’t get to sleep until 4am. I’ve been all over the show.”
Remarkably, Porteous was not even the first 16-year-old Kiwi to win a medal on Thursday.
Earlier, Zoi Sadowski Synnott ended New Zealand’s 26-year Winter Olympics medal drought with a bronze in the women’s big air, coming in behind gold medalist Anna Gasser of Austria and Anderson, who added a silver to last week’s slopestyle gold.
New Zealand’s lone previous medal at the Winter Games came at the Albertville Games in 1992, when alpine skier Annelise Coberger won a silver in the women’s slalom.
Wise’s triumph marked the United States’ seventh gold medal in Pyeongchang and the fifth at the Phoenix Snow Park, where Americans swept the first four snowboarding golds awarded last week behind Shaun White (men’s halfpipe), Chloe Kim (women’s halfpipe), Jamie Anderson (women’s slopestyle) and Red Gerard (men’s slopestyle).
