Team USA takes gold, silver in freestyle halfpipe
BONGPYEONG, South Korea - The loaded American team of freestyle skiers captured a pair of medals in the ski halfpipe here Wednesday, with David Wise winning gold and Alex Ferreira taking silver.
The performance helped to drive a surge in the U.S. medal count as these Winter Olympics near an end.
Wise, who also won gold in Sochi, saved his medal-winning run for the third and final heat, overcoming two spills earlier in the day to earn a 97.20. Ferreira, in his first Olympics, was just behind with a 96.40.
New Zealand's Nico Porteous won the bronze.
The U.S. had eyed the men's ski halfpipe finals as one of its most promising events. The finals included 12 skiers - four of them Americans, all of whom had survived an earlier round of qualifying that pared the field from 27. During that qualifying round, U.S. skiers Aaron Blunck, Ferreira and Torin Yater-Wallace had posted the top three scores of the day. The other American to qualify, Wise, finished eighth - but he too was considered a medal favorite.
"This final," Wise said, "is going to be absolutely unreal."
But the field was stacked. New Zealand's Beau-James Wells was considered a medal contender. The silver and bronze medalists from Sochi, Canada's Mike Riddle and France's Kevin Rolland, were also in the finals.
This was the second Winter Olympics that included halfpipe skiing as an event.
Entering the day, the U.S. had 16 medals - four of those, including one gold, coming in the previous 24 hours. First, a women's team ended the U.S.'s eight-year speed skating medal drought. Then the women's sprint team helped the U.S. win its first-ever cross-country gold. Late Wednesday night, a top duo took silver in women's bobsled. And then, early Thursday morning, the U.S. claimed its 17th medal, with Jamie Anderson capturing a silver in the women's snowboard big air event.
Hours later, it was time for the halfpipe, where the Americans had at least dared to think about sweeping the podium.
"Would it be amazing?" Wise said. "Absolutely. We'd be so stoked. I'm just excited to be out here skiing with the guys who push me to higher levels."
The four Americans here know one another well. They've competed against one another for years. Three of them are from Colorado. At these Winter Games, they've paired up as roommates in side-by-side dorms. And they are used to succeeding together: Last month at the Winter X Games, Wise, Ferreira and Yater-Wallace took the top three spots in the Superpipe event.
For Yater-Wallace, who didn't medal, just the chance to be back on top was especially rewarding. In 2015, he was hit with a sudden wave of sickness. He tried to ignore it. In fact, he went skiing. But days later, he was airlifted to a hospital in Utah, stricken by a viral infection that affected his lungs and liver. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma. Just two months later, he won a gold medal at the X Games.
"Ultimately what happened to me in 2015 was out of nowhere, nothing I could have done to stop it," Yater-Wallace said. "So when you deal with something like that you grasp this appreciation for waking up every day when you're healthy and eating breakfast and enjoying the day. That's the biggest thing I take from that situation: the appreciation for not only skiing but waking up feeling healthy. It makes you feel not invincible. Everything can bring you down, but you power through it and keep on trekking."
During the first of the three heats Thursday, Wise's skis got tangled as he was landing after a jump. He skidded to the ground, and judges awarded his run a 17.00. Blunck and Yater-Wallace settled in the middle of the pack. But Ferreira rose to the top, pulling off a dazzling run packed with amplitude, earning a 92.60 - the highest score of the heat.
In the second heat, Ferreira kept his lead, again pulling off the best run of the heat - a 96.00 - to jump back ahead of New Zealand's Porteous, who several minutes earlier had earned a 94.80.