Choi Ga-on wins her Snowboard World Cup debut

Choi Ga-on, the rising star snowboarder from South Korea, won her debut competition at the Snowboard World Cup hosted by the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Choi earned a winning score of 92.75 points in the women's halfpipe final of the FIS Snowboard World Cup for the 2023-2024 season held in Copper Mountain, Colorado on Sunday. It has been two years since a South Korean skier or snowboarder won a World Cup gold medal, with Lee Sang-ho winning the men's alpine parallel slalom snowboard in December 2021. Choi is the first South Korean athlete to win the halfpipe at the World Cup.

She faced some crises during the competition. She was behind Mitsuki Ono of Japan by 4.75 points due to point deductions from an unstable grab and landing on the first attempt. In the second attempt, however, she succeeded in 720-degree and 900-degree techniques and won 92.74 points, beating Ono, who earned 90.00 points on the second attempt. In the halfpipe, which is performed in a half tube of snow, snowboarders receive points based on the completeness of their performance and are ranked based on the highest points they earn out of three attempts.

“I am so happy that I could win my debut World Cup competition,” said Choi. "I was determined to showcase perfect techniques in the second attempt as I was behind Ono in the first attempt and was able to show great performance."

Ono, who won silver in the World Cup, won FIS World Cup gold medals three times, as well as the FIS Snowboarding Junior World Championships in 2018 and 2019 and the Winter Youth Olympics in 2020. Choi won the Junior World Championships last year and set a new record as the youngest winner of the X Games Superpipe in January, replacing the previous record held by Chloe Kim of the U.S. Her upward trend was followed by beating Ono at the latest World Cup.


leper@donga.com