The final weekend of the Olympics was chock full of team skiing and slalom snowboarding events in both the men's and women's divisions. The United States medaled once in the final weekend of competition and the Czech Republic and Switzerland dominated in the slalom snowboarding events. As the Olympics in Pyeongchang come to a close, we can reflect on the past epic weeks on the snow and look forward to the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
Men's Big Air Final
The Men's Big Air competition took place at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Center on Saturday, February 24th. Canada's Sebastien Toutant landed high scoring jumps in the first two of his three runs, putting pressure on the competition. He failed to complete a switch 1620 jump on his third run but ultimately came out ahead with the gold medal after several other competitors attempted to throw down big jumps they did not complete. Kyle Mack from the United States took the silver and Billy Morgan from Great Britain took bronze.
Alpine Team Event
Switzerland and Austria faced off for the gold medal in the Alpine Team Event Big Final. The competition is set up so that four skiers from each country race in turn on a slalom course against another the others in a knockout format. The Swiss team was comprised of Denise Feierabend, Ramon Zenhaeusern, Wendy Holdener and Daniel Yule while the second place Austrian team members included Katharina Liensberger, Michael Matt, Katharina Gallhuber and Marco Schwarz. In the small final, Norway faced off against France for the bronze medal, with Norway inching ahead for the win on a time difference of 0.12 seconds.
Ladies' Parallel Giant Slalom
This event will go down in the history books as Ester Ledecka from the Czech Republic becomes the first athlete to win events in both alpine skiing and snowboarding in the same Olympic Games. After her astounding win on skis in the Super G just a few days prior, she got back on her snowboard and nabbed the gold medal in the Ladies' Parallel Giant Slalom event. Germany's Selina Joerg won the silver medal and in the small final Germany's Ramona Theresia Hofmeister took the bronze.
Men's Parallel Giant Slalom
In the Men's Parallel Giant Slalom event, Nevin Galmarini from Switzerland won the gold medal, just besting out Sang-ho Lee from South Korea for the silver. Zan Kosir won bronze for Slovenia in the small final, finishing off an epic day of competition. The winning time was 1:24.78, a combination of the times on both the blue and the red courses.
