Reigning Olympic champion Eileen Gu recovered from a fall to qualify for the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final.
China’s Gu has already won two silver medals, in slopestyle and big air, at Milan Cortina, making her the most decorated women’s freestyle skier in history.
The 22-year-old, who has never entered an Olympic event without winning a medal, fell on her first run, uncharacteristically clipping the lip of the halfpipe on her third trick.
It seemed Gu was “cursed” in qualifying, as she said to the television cameras, referring to her fall in big air qualifying too. But in that event she pulled through, and did so again Thursday.
Going into the second run, Gu had to land a clean routine to make the top 12. She attacked it with consecutive 900 degree tricks, soaring 4.3m above the 6.7m halfpipe but once again slightly caught the wall on the way down from the same third trick — a 720. This time, though, she stuck the landing.
The American-born athlete, who decided to represent China in 2019, held her nerve, scoring 86.50 to qualify fifth. “I’ll take that,” she said. But she will have to go bigger and better if she is to medal on Saturday.
Gu fell in her first run, leaving her with much to do in her second run. (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images)
Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin, Gu’s rival, qualified in first place with a score of 91.50, putting down a commanding performance in both runs, showing confidence and fluidity.
The defending world champion and 2026 X Games winner — the pinnacle of the sport outside the Olympics — cruised into the final, showing serious height on her tricks, soaring 5m above the 7m halfpipe. In December, Gu beat Atkin by just 1.5 points to take the 2025-2026 World Cup halfpipe title.
Judges score the sequence of tricks based on their degree of risk and how the competitor uses the pipe. Athletes are deducted points for falls, stops, over-rotations and minor mistakes. On Saturday, competitors start in reverse order of their qualification results and the best of their three runs will count.
Last week Gu, the only female freestyle skier competing in all three freeski events — slopestyle, halfpipe and big air — at the Winter Games, criticized the scheduling of her freeski events, saying the program “doesn’t make sense” and is “really unfair.”
The big air final, which took place on Monday, clashed with one of the three training sessions leading up to Thursday’s qualification, meaning Gu could only attend two of the halfpipe practices provided. In a statement to The Athletic, FIS communications director Bruno Sassi said that, “constructing the Olympic competition program is a complex process.”
Gu could leave the 2026 Winter Olympics with three medals, matching her three-medal haul — two golds and one silver — at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Meanwhile, 2018 Olympic halfpipe gold medallist Cassie Sharpe was taken off on a stretcher after hitting the icy floor hard on her second run. The Canadian was seen waving to the crowd as she left the course and qualified for the final in third position thanks to her score of 88.25 on her first run.