Winter Olympics: Chloe Kim wins snowboard halfpipe gold to retain title

Chloe Kim won snowboard halfpipe gold with incredible ease to retain her Winter Olympic title from 2018.

Unbeaten since 2019, the 21-year-old American blew her competition away with a 94.00 score on her opening run.

Such was her lead, Kim attempted 1260s — never before landed in women's halfpipe competition — on her second and third runs but fell both times.

Spain's Queralt Castellet won silver with 90.25 while Japan's Sena Tomita took the bronze medal with 88.25.

In Pyeongchang four years ago, Kim — then just 17, became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal.

But in the aftermath of her success, she struggled with the pressures and fame that accompanied it, and later took 19 months away from the sport in 2019-20 and enrolled at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Following her return to snowboarding in 2021, she won a second World Championship gold before landing her sixth X-Games title.

Her victory at the Beijing Games makes her the first woman to win back-to-back snowboard halfpipe titles in Olympic history.

The event was added to the Olympic programme in 1998 — two years before Kim was born.