ZHANGJIAKOU, China — In a Pyeongchang podium shuffle, New Zealand’s Nico Porteous dethroned two-time gold medalist David Wise on Saturday in the Olympic ski halfpipe final to upgrade a 2018 bronze medal for his first gold. Wise medaled for his third consecutive Games with silver, and Pyeongchang silver medalist Alex Ferreira took bronze to give the United States two medals for the second time since freeski halfpipe made its Olympic debut.
Since 2014, the United States has won five of the nine men's freeski halfpipe medals.
"Americans are good at the rebel sports," Wise said. "I would call halfpipe a rebel sport. It's a sport where we don't really like to listen to the rules, we don't really like to do things the way you tell us we should do that. We like to go out there and put our own signature on it, our own style, do it exactly the way we think it should be done, and that gets judged well in this sport because it's cool to look unique."
Of the 23 medals won by U.S. athletes in these Games, four came from freeskiers, including slopestyle gold and silver from Alex Hall and Nick Goepper.
In halfpipe, the United States sent its entire four-man team to the finals for the second consecutive Olympics. The veteran squad with three returning Olympians flexed its muscle by qualifying in four of the top seven positions, including three of the top four.
While youth has taken over many action sports — 15 of 36 medals in halfpipe, big air and slopestyle competitions for snowboard and freeski were won by athletes 22 years old or younger — Saturday's halfpipe final had just one competitor born in the current millennium: the 20-year-old Porteous.
The New Zealand rider set the tone with back-to-back double cork 1620s in his first run, repeating a feat that helped him win X Games in 2021, when he was the first to land the combination with spins in both directions. The 93-point run jumped him over Wise's first attempt, which earned 90.75 points, and Ferreira, who scored 86.75 points on his first run.
Ferreira, the 2018 silver medalist, credited Porteous' new tricks for helping him out of a three-year post-Olympic slump. The 27-year-old said after winning silver in Pyeongchang that he felt stagnant. The excitement from the Games had faded. He had an Olympic medal — a symbol of a lifelong goal — but he was left wondering what it was all for.
Seeing a younger rider like Porteous push limits helped Ferreira find sudden motivation.
"It makes me a better skier," he said. "It makes me a better person. It makes me just better overall. It makes me happier."
Difficult conditions tested the riders during Saturday's final. While an Alpine race 75 miles south of Zhangjiakou was delayed because of wind, halfpipers dropped in for runs as plumes of snow swirled through the course.
Wise's competition bib whipped in the wind as he waited to begin his run.
The two-time defending gold medalist returned for his third Olympics after shattering his femur in 2019, the latest in a list of injuries that have built up over his professional career. While Wise wishes he still had springy cartilage between his knees to cushion his landings and slightly more space between the vertebrae in his back, the 31-year-old father of two isn't trading those physical advantages for the mental tricks he has picked up during his career.
"You cannot put a price on experience," Wise said. "Because you learn how to let go of pressure, and how to just enjoy the ride."
Wise didn't let the difficult conditions faze him during his first run as he calmly rode through, capping it with back-to-back double cork 1260s. When he landed, he threw his arms out and leaned his head back with a laugh.
"Wow," he said.
