Alex Hall was in a class of his own on Tuesday night in the men’s freeski slopestyle Olympic event.
He scored a 90.01 on his first run, and it stuck as the best overall mark and the only score in the 90s across the competition. Now Hall has a new crowning achievement in a career that had already risen to remarkable heights: an Olympic gold medal.
“I’m just stoked I did it, my best slopestyle ever — and for the world to see that,” he said.
Fellow American Nick Goepper joined Hall on the podium in second, while Park City’s Colby Stevenson came in seventh. The U.S. fell just short of repeating its freeski slopestyle podium sweep in 2014.
Hall, a Winter Sports School graduate, added his own flair to the Olympic slopestyle course’s grinds, gaps and kickers en route to winning the gold medal. On his winning run, Hall didn’t focus on just big spins on the jumps at the end of the course but on style as well. He spun off the middle of the second jump, touched the knuckle and continued to spin before landing.
Hall ended his first run by seemingly defying all laws of physics. He pulled off a double cork 1080 but then brought it back 180 degrees in the opposite direction. That was more than enough to impress the judges and earn that 90.01 score.
“With where our sport’s been going, a lot of what we do, we call ‘spin to win,’ and, so, everyone is spinning as much as they can,” Hall said. “To take a new approach and do a trick that has almost no rotation but is still really, really hard — it was really, really sweet.”
Stevenson’s best run was also his first one. A solid run from the top to the bottom of the course earned him a score of 77.41, but he couldn’t improve upon that mark with either of his next two attempts. Both went down as throwaways after mistakes in the first few sections of the course. Stevenson won’t be heading back to Park City empty-handed, though, as he won the silver medal in big air earlier in the Games.
“I am so happy to show my stuff on the world stage and ski the way that I did,” Stevenson said in a release. “It wasn’t exactly what I wanted today, but that’s how it goes, man, when you’re laying it all on the line. Give it your best and make sure to have fun. You don’t want to get to upset if you don’t do well. We’re living it.”
Hall was born in Alaska and grew up in Switzerland before moving to Park City to train as a teenager. He made his Olympic debut in the 2018 Games in South Korea but only finished 16th in slopestyle. Now, he has an Olympic gold medal to pair with the nine X Games medals — five of them gold — he’s won since 2019.
“It definitely was the best slopestyle run I’ve ever done, mainly because it embodied everything I love about skiing and how I approach skiing,” Hall said in a release. “I didn’t fade away from that to try and maybe get bigger scores or something.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.