Chloe Kim overcomes 'mental battle' to scorch to Olympic gold again

Chloe Kim said she was "not in a good place" when she woke up for the women's snowboard halfpipe final at the Beijing Games on Thursday - but she certainly was when it was all over.

The American sensation overcame a "mental battle" to successfully defend her Olympic title, virtually guaranteeing herself the gold with a scorching-hot start.

She claimed an unassailable lead of 94.00 points after her first of three runs, clutching her helmet and dropping to her knees as she slid into the finish area.

"I had the worst practice ever - I probably landed my run twice when I'm used to landing it eight times normally and that kind of puts you in a weird headspace," said the 21-year-old.

"I just overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go and then it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new."

Spain's Queralt Castellet took silver on 90.25, while Japan's Sena Tomita claimed bronze on 88.25.

Kim gave her rivals little chance of catching her after her phenomenal first-run performance, turning the rest of the competition into her own private victory lap.

It gave her breathing space to try some new tricks to a crowd that included California-born Chinese freestyle skiing star Eileen Gu, but she fell on both her second and third runs.

"My butt hurts," Kim laughed after attempting an ultra-difficult cab 1260 trick on her final run.

"It was worth it though, for sure, a thousand percent. That's what keeps me going. I'm really excited I did it."

Kim even had time to embrace Gu after her second run, although the snowboard star described their exchange as "just a lot of screaming and a lot of excitement".

Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal when she claimed halfpipe