Snowboarder Lee Chaeun finishes 6th in men's halfpipe
Korea's Lee Chaeun reacts after his run during the men's snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, Friday (local time). AP-Yonhap
MILAN — Snowboarder Lee Chaeun finished in sixth place in the men's halfpipe event at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Friday, as his late-gasp rally wasn't enough to put him on the podium.
Lee, 19, scored 87.50 points in the final at Livigno Snow Park in Livigno, some 140 kilometers north of Milan. Yuto Totsuka of Japan won the gold medal with 95.00 points, and Scotty James took the silver medal with 93.50 points. Another Japanese athlete, Ryusei Yamada, got the bronze medal with 92.00 points.
Lee and the 11 other finalists each performed three times, and only the best score of the three counted as their final score. The highest and lowest of the six judges' scores were discarded after each run.
Lee earned his score in the third run after failing to complete his first two attempts.
In halfpipe, boarders perform acrobatic spins, flips and board grabs on a 22-foot, U-shaped structure. They are judged on the degree of difficulty, height and execution of their moves.
Lee, the 2023 world champion and the 2024 Winter Youth Olympic gold medalist, fell trying to land his third move of the first run, a frontside triple cork 1620 — involving three backward flips and 4 1/2 rotations. He earned only 24.75 points with it.
In the second run, Lee had a wobbly landing on his third trick, a frontside double cork 1440 with a tail grab — featuring two flips with four full rotations and a grab of the board's tail — and didn't have enough momentum to execute the remaining two moves. Lee once again settled for 24.75 points.
With his medal hopes hanging by a thread, Lee nailed all five of his moves in his final run, including the difficult frontside triple cork 1620, but with four boarders already sitting at 90 points or higher, Lee received 87.50 points.
He was in fifth place following his final run and finished one spot lower at the end.
Lee said afterward he expected a higher score after pulling off the frontside triple cork 1620. He was seen shedding tears in disappointment afterward, and choked back on tears in his media availability, too.
"I expected 92.00 or 92.50 points with my third run," said Lee, who is believed to have landed the world's first triple cork 1620 in 2024. "But I just wasn't good enough. I am still proud of having landed this trick. As soon as I finished my third run, I felt a big sense of accomplishment."
Lee said he had worked "extremely hard" for this Olympics, his second after Beijing 2022, and he realized after Friday's final that he has to work even harder.
"I thought I had prepared really hard for this Olympics but I guess it was good enough only for me," he said. "If my blood and tears aren't enough, I will shed blood, sweat and tears. I want to get to the top of the podium at the next Olympics."
With four boarders finishing with the scores in the 90s — fourth-place Ruka Hirano had 91.00 points — Lee said, "Everyone went crazy."
"I guess I will have to go even crazier to get to the podium the next time," he said.
Lee had a tough act to follow, as his event came 24 hours after fellow South Korean boarder Choi Gaon captured the women's halfpipe gold medal. In a valiant effort after taking a nasty fall during her first run, Choi scored 92.50 points in her third run to hold off Korean American superstar Chloe Kim, who was trying to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals.