11-year-old finishes second in Dew Tour snowboard halfpipe

Patti Zhou, an 11-year-old snowboarder from China who is too young for the next Olympics, finished runner-up in the Dew Tour halfpipe in Copper Mountain, Colorado, on Saturday.

Zhou’s 90.66-point run included a switch backside 900, cab 720, frontside 540 and backside 540, according to contest organizers.

Zhou finished second behind another phenom — 14-year-old South Korean Gaon Choi, who last month broke her mentor Chloe Kim‘s record as the youngest X Games snowboard halfpipe champion.

The five-woman final had zero Olympians.

Kim hasn’t competed since last year’s Olympics but said in April that she plans to return for a 2026 Winter Games bid.

Unless rules are changed, Zhou cannot compete at the next Olympics because, traditionally, the Olympic age minimum in snowboarding has been 15. Kim missed the 2014 Sochi Games because she was 13 at the time.

Raised in China, Zhou and her family settled into Silverthorne, Colorado. She jokes that she tells people she’s from, “Beijing, Colorado.”

In 2020, an 8-year-old Zhou posted video of her landing a 720 in a halfpipe, according to the International Ski Federation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Steven Nyman, an American Alpine skier who raced at three Olympics, announced he will retire after Saturday’s World Cup downhill in Aspen, Colorado, airing on NBC Sports and Peacock.

He has been sidelined since December with a shattered right hand, an injury that convinced him that he was done at age 41.

“My love for the sport of Alpine ski racing burns strong, but I have taken it to my limits physically and cannot compete on the highest stage anymore,” Nyman said, according to a U.S. Ski and Snowboard press release. “I am happy