Lee Chae-woon (18, Suri High School), the flagship snowboarder of Korea, won the first competition of the 2024 Gangwon Youth Olympics (Gangwon 2024), winning the slopestyle, and started to win three gold medals.
At the men’s slopestyle final of 2024 snowboarding held at the Welli Hilli Park ski resort in Hoengseong, Gangwon Province, Lee won the title with 96 points, beating Canada’s Ally Bouchard (90 points). It was the third gold medal for the Korean team and the first gold medal Korea has won in the snowboarding event of the Winter Youth Olympics. Lee is the first Korean to win a snowboarding gold medal in the adult Winter Olympics. Lee Sang-ho, a “cabbage boy,” won the first silver medal in men’s parallel competition at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Lee Chae-woon became the youngest player ever to win the men’s halfpipe event (16 years and 10 months) at the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Championship in March last year, and is already dominating as a top-ranked player at the adult level. His main event, halfpipe, is a competition in which judges score performances in the air, including rotations and jumps, on semi-cylindrical slopes to determine the ranking. Slopestyle, which was played on the day, is performed in a course consisting of various objects and jumping platforms.
In the first round of the finals, Lee Chae-woon showed off his four-round jumps to rank No. 1 overall with 91.50 points. In the second round, Lee attempted more than four-round jumps but fell when landing and scored 37.50 points. However, he clambered four and a half laps in the final round, and raised his score to 96 points to complete his “golden performance.” 마카오카지노주소
“I didn’t care about the score, I just focused on my skills. I was able to get a perfect score because I achieved my skills,” Lee said after the race. “I was really excited when I landed after the last skill. I’m so happy to have such a competition at the Winter Youth Olympics.”
Lee Chae-woon, who demonstrated his capability from the first competition at the Youth Olympics held at his home, is aiming for the third gold medal. Lee plans to compete in the preliminary round of Big Air (a sport in which she performs aerial stunts by jumping on a large jumping platform) on Wednesday, the final round on Friday, and the halfpipe event on February 1.
In addition to Lee Chae-woon’s gold medal, Korea also added two silver medals in ice speed and ice hockey. The Korean women’s ice hockey team lost to Hungary 2-10 (0-2 1-5 1-3) in the final of the three-on-three tournament, but it gave Korea a valuable silver medal in the history of ice hockey with the first Olympic medal. Heo Seok (Uijeong High School) and Lim Ri-won (Uijeong Girls’ High School) combined to win a silver medal in the mixed relay. In the mixed relay final held at Gangneung Speed Skating Center, the two skaters posted a time of 3:11.78 to rank second after China (3:11.74).