2022 Winter Olympics: What you’ve missed since PyeongChang

In freeskiing, it is uncommon to seek out “triple threats” — athletes who excel in all three disciplines (halfpipe, slopestyle, large air) — however a pair of youngsters, 19-year-old Kelly Sildaru and 18-year-old Eileen Gu, have been taking up girls’s contests by doing simply that.

Estonia’s Sildaru, who exploded onto the slopestyle scene at age 13, was set as much as be a breakout star on the 2018 Winter Video games, however a torn ACL prevented her from competing in PyeongChang. After recovering from that damage, Sildaru shortly returned to her profitable methods and established herself as a risk not simply in slopestyle, but in addition in halfpipe and large air, as she collected three gold medals, one silver and one bronze at Winter X Video games in 2019 and 2020.

Gu made her X Video games debut in 2021 — a 12 months Sildaru was absent attributable to damage — and had a real breakout efficiency as she received gold in halfpipe and slopestyle, plus bronze in large air. Though she was born in San Francisco and grew up in america, Gu grew to become a naturalized Chinese language citizen in 2019 and now competes for her mom’s dwelling nation. She might change into one of many host nation’s largest stars at Beijing 2022.

Each skiers additionally received gold medals on the Youth Olympic Video games in 2020 — Sildaru in slopestyle, Gu in halfpipe and large air — and now they may compete throughout a number of occasions for Winter Olympic gold.