Colby Stevenson Wins Surprise Silver for U.S. in Men’s Freestyle Big Air at Beijing
Six years after a near-fatal car crash, American freestyler wins Olympic silver in Beijing.
Catherine Ivill/Getty
American freestyle skier Colby Stevenson won a surprise silver medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday, pulling off a switch left 1800—five full rotations—on his final run in the big air competition. It was an unlikely result for the 24-year-old, who spent three days in an induced coma after a near-fatal car crash in rural Idaho in 2016, and is normally considered more of a slopestyle specialist. “I’m totally on a cloud,” he said, according to USA Today. “It hasn’t quite set in yet. It’s a miracle I ended up on the podium today honestly.” Stevenson’s teammate Alex Hall, considered a gold-medal chance, missed a grab on the first run and decided to go for a 2160—a super-hard trick involving six full rotations that he used to win gold at the X Games last month—but could not land it cleanly and found himself eliminated. Norway’s Birk Ruud went into his final jump still leading in the points and, with gold guaranteed, decided to head down the slope brandishing a Norwegian flag in celebration.
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