USA wins gold in first Olympic mixed team aerials event
BEIJING – The American freestyle skiing team added a third gold medal of the day to Team USA’S tally in Thursday in the mixed team aerials event, which is new to the Olympics this year.
Essentially, teams of three – two men and one woman – each get one jump off a ramp in each round of the competition. The skiier is judged on their form while in the air, how high and far they launch off the ramp and the landing. The scores are added cumulatively, and because all the scores count, there’s not much margin for error.
That worked to the Americans’ favor as their three competitors made some key errors in the last round of the competition.
The U.S. team, by contrast, made clean runs in the final and put enough distance between themselves and China – which had the last jump – to hold on for the gold medal.
It turned out to be a fairly close call, as China’s Qi Guangpu had a terrific final jump, but the U.S. held on to win by over 14 points, scoring a 338.34.
The competition turned with the second jump of the final round when American Christopher Lillis executed a flawless launch and got rewarded with a 135.0 from the judges, which was the highest score for any individual jump. China’s Jia Zongyang skidded into a somersault on his landing and lost significant ground, scoring just a 96.02.
That gave the U.S. a solid, but not iron-clad lead going into the final jumps. Justin Schoenefeld solidified it with a 114.48.
Ashley Caldwell, a four-time Olympian and 2017 World Champion in aerials, had the second-best score among the women in the final round.
— Dan Wolken