Alex Ferreira wins gold in freestyle skiing halfpipe after flawless final run

After winning a silver in 2018 and a bronze in 2022, Alex Ferreira has his gold.

The 31-year-old from Aspen, Colorado, took the top step of the podium in the freestyle skiing men’s halfpipe event on Friday.

Henry Sildaru of Estonia and Brendan Mackay of Canada took silver and bronze, respectively, while American star Nick Goepper crashed hard on his final run but still finished fourth.

Ferreira has been in contention to win this gold medal since his Olympic debut in PyeongChang eight years ago. He’s won 10 golds in World Cup events, and he’s now finally broken through on the Olympic stage.

With the latest gold, Team USA now has its most gold medals at a Winter Olympics since 2002. If the Americans can win one more at Milan Cortina, it would break the nation’s record.

Ferreira was confident throughout his three runs on Friday, gradually improving with each attempt. He caught the wall late in his first run, but still sat third with a 49.50. His second run was clean, and he knew it, throwing his hands in the air after getting to the bottom and jumping to the top of the leaderboard briefly before falling to second.

Then came the golden run. Ferreira landed everything in his third attempt, improving from a 90.50 to a 93.75. While Sildaru did better on his third run, his 93.00 wasn’t quite enough to take gold.

Perhaps Ferreira’s greatest competition was his teammate Goepper. He made it all the way to the end of his third run, but landed on the top of the halfpipe while attempting a never-before-completed move. He was down on the ground injured for several minutes, and it seemed like he would be stretchered off, before he rose to his feet and walked off slowly under his own power. He said he had “no regrets” about trying the move.

Other Americans in the event finished fifth (Birk Irving) and 10th (Hunter Hess). Irving had his best run on his final attempt, but missed the podium by three points.

Olympian Alex Fererria describes how his coach helps him succeed on and off the slopes