By Lisa Richwine and Alvise Armellini
LIVIGNO, Italy, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Eileen Gu brought home three new medals to make Olympic history and help China dominate the freestyle skiing contests that pushed the sport to new heights at the Milano Cortina Games.
The 22-year-old became the world’s most decorated freestyle skier by taking a gold and two silvers with jaw-dropping mid-air flips and spins in the Alpine town of Livigno.
American-born Gu, who had three medals from previous Olympics, represents her mother’s homeland of China.
Her feats lifted China’s medal count in freestyle skiing to nine, above eight for the United States.
American Alex Ferreira added a gold in men’s halfpipe to complete his medal collection after a bronze and silver at previous Games.
Male and female freeskiers demonstrated new tricks with higher elevation and more spins than ever before. Medal-winning scores are based partly on technical ability as well as creativity.
In the big air contest, the winning score for Tormod Frostad of Norway was a near-perfect 195.5 out of 200.
“Year after year we get to see the progression of a sport as the average of everybody rises,” Gu said.
“We all get better, and maybe the people at the top are contributing a little bit more, but everybody is contributing to that growth.”
China were confirmed as the dominant force in aerials, retaining gold medals in the women’s and men’s finals through husband-and-wife couple Wang Xindi and Xu Mengtao.
However, the Chinese could not complete a hat-trick of top podiums, as the U.S. kept their title in the mixed team aerials.
Four-time Olympian Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was the star of moguls, taking silver in the men’s event and gold in the newly introduced dual moguls, adding to one gold and two silvers from previous Winter Games.
Milano Cortina was the last Olympics for the 33-year-old, who is now the most decorated man in freestyle skiing.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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