22 Months Removed From Last Snowboarding Competition, Chloe Kim Wins Laax Open Halfpipe Final

If you’re one of the best women’s halfpipe competitors in the world, it has to be somewhat disconcerting that there’s a snowboarder out there who can take 22 months off competition to rehab a broken ankle and attend her first year of college, only to pop back up and absolutely smoke you in the FIS Snowboard World Cup halfpipe season opener.

But that, of course, is exactly what American phenom Chloe Kim did in Switzerland on Saturday at the 2021 Laax Open, holding off Japan’s Mitsuka Ono and Sena Tomita to finish atop the podium. Ono and Tomita finished second and third, respectively.

Having resumed training in October, Kim didn’t appear to have the least bit of rust as she finished the women’s halfpipe semifinal atop the standings with 94.00 points before Saturday’s final.

Chalk it up to nerves or enthusiasm, but Kim’s first run saw her attempt to do too much and get burned for it, as she suffered a rare fall attempting her first frontside 1080. Sitting at fifth of six riders, she needed to top Ono’s score of 76.50 on her second run.

But when Kim is dialed-in, she’s dialed-in; on her second run, she showed the world that she’s still the rider to beat in halfpipe with an enviable combination of big tricks and silky-smooth, stylish riding.

That Kim makes the highest level of pipe riding look so effortless is a testament to her talent, not at all to this sport being easy. Far from it.

What’s more, Kim didn’t even have to stomp the back-to-back 1080s that made her the youngest Olympic halfpipe champion at 17 years old to earn this W. She is the only woman in the world with that in her bag.

“Tonight I wanted to try a new trick on my second run, but at the end of the day, winning is more important,” Kim said, per U.S. Ski & Snowboard. “I wanted to put something down and told myself I didn’t need to go as big as I did on my first run. I just wanted to slow things down a bit.”

It was Kim’s eighth World Cup halfpipe win in 12 starts.

Kim’s victory also saw her defeat Spain’s Queralt Castellet, who won women’s halfpipe at X Games Aspen 2020 while Kim was on hiatus. Kim was the women’s halfpipe champion in 2019.

In the men’s halfpipe final, the U.S., repped by Olympian Taylor Gold and new U.S. Snowboard Pro Team member Joey Okesson, was shut out of the podium as Japan’s Yuto Totsuka and Ruka Hirano and Australia’s Scotty James took first, second and third, respectively.

American Jamie Anderson topped the women’s slopestyle podium on Friday, with New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski Synnot taking second place and Japan’s Murase Kokomo taking third.

U.S. Snowboard Slopestyle Pro Team members Kyle Mack and Lyon Farrell weren’t able to compete in the men’s slopestyle final after announcing they had tested positive for COVID-19. Seven of their teammates, including defending Laax Open women’s slopestyle champion Julia Marino, were also held out for a mandatory quarantine.

The U.S. men were also shut out of the slopestyle podium. Niklas Mattsson, the lowest-scoring rider to qualify for finals, took first, rounded out by Leon Vockensperger—now the first German man ever to earn a slopestyle World Cup podium—in second and Marcus Kleveland in third.

Expect Kim and some of her U.S. Snowboard Team teammates to collect some hardware next week at Buttermilk Mountain as X Games Aspen 2021 kicks off Jan. 29.

“Looking forward to X Games, we have a strong crew ready to compete,” said U.S. Snowboard Halfpipe Pro Team head coach Rick Bower. “Chloe and Maddie [Mastro] are at the tip of the spear in women’s halfpipe snowboarding progression and I know that Laax will only be fuel for the fire next week.”