Chloe Kim Fails to Win Historic Gold Medal in Snowboarding Halfpipe at Olympics 2026

There will be no historic three-peat for Chloe Kim.

The American legend finished in second place and won the silver medal in Thursday's women's snowboard halfpipe competition at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics with a score of 88.00. Gaon Choi of the Republic of Korea (90.25) and Mitsuki Ono of Japan (85.00) captured the gold and bronze medals, respectively.

Choi won the event with her third and final run after Kim was in the lead through the first two rounds.

Kim was already a snowboarding icon before she arrived at these Games, as she won the gold in the women's halfpipe at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and 2022 Beijing Olympics.

But she had a chance to cement her place in history with Thursday's competition.

Had she won, she would have become the first snowboarder to complete a three-peat in a single event. But she was unable to accomplish the feat just like the four previous athletes who had an opportunity to do so:

At least she had the support of her famous boyfriend in the crowd:

Despite not winning, Kim made a statement right out of the gates as she unleashed a switch double-cork 1080 and inverted 540 for the top score of 88.00 during the first run. It was a message to the rest of the field that she was the one to beat, especially when seven of the 12 competitors failed to successfully complete their own first runs.

She tried to raise the bar even higher in the second run and seemed well on her way to doing just that with multiple double-cork 1080s but fell on the second attempt.

Still, she was in the lead heading into the third and final run until Choi bounced back from an earlier fall and two failed attempts with an incredible last performance to propel herself into the lead.

Kim still had one more opportunity as the final competitor but fell on her last run.

American Shaun White remains the only snowboarder in Olympic history to win three gold medals in the halfpipe. Yet his triumphs were not consecutive, as he took home gold in the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Games.

He finished in fourth place in 2014.

Perhaps Kim can follow in his footsteps and win a third gold in four years after she fell short during Thursday's final that consisted of three runs for each competitor with the single best score counting toward the final results.

That gave her and the rest of the field more opportunities than Wednesday's qualification contest when each competitor had just two runs with the best score counting. Kim set the tone right from the start in those qualifiers with the best score of 90.25.

It answered some questions about how ready she would be for the 2026 Games considering she is competing just weeks after a shoulder injury she confirmed was a torn labrum. She suffered the injury during a training run and returned to halfpipe just two weeks ago while wearing a shoulder brace.

"I've landed all the components of my finals run, I just haven't put them together," she said after the qualifying runs. "So I'll get to do it on the big day."

She didn't quite put it all together for gold on the "big day," but it was still another memorable Games for the two-time Olympic champion.