Kira Kimura of Team Japan reacts during his third run of the men's snowboard big air final on Day 1 of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics on Saturday in Livigno, Italy. Kimura's gold medal marked the first that Japan has won in the event.Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Spinning through the air with the greatest of technical ease, Kira Kimura dazzled the audience in the men’s big air snowboard competition and won Japan’s first-ever gold in the event.
His near-flawless final run gave him the edge over compatriot Ryoma Kimata, who won silver, and defending Olympic champion Su Yiming of China, who settled for bronze.
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The Japanese and the Chinese have dominated the big air competition since it made its debut in 2018 in the PyeongChang Games and proved unshakeable once again under the glare of floodlights in Livigno on Saturday night.
Martin Oliver of the U.S. came close to reaching the podium. His final two runs were superb, allowing him to bury his flawed first run. He ranked fourth. Scores from the two highest-scoring runs in the three rounds are combined to determine the athlete’s overall score.
Canada’s lone participant, Francis Jobin, 27, of Quebec City, one of the older competitors in a sport that is full of teenagers, placed seventh among the 12 competitors. He had a lousy first run that saw him almost lose his balance upon landing.
Canada’s Francis Jobin placed seventh of 12 competitors in the men's big air finals, with his second of three attempts getting a big response from the crowd in Livigno, Italy.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
His second run was a marvel. The Italian announcers pronounced it “bellissimo” – very beautiful. But his final run was no better than average.
Big air is a crowd-pleaser of a sport, especially among young spectators, that is infamous for its relatively high injury rate from hard landings (ski big air is even more injury prone than the snowboard version). In Livigno, several competitors crashed after high-speed, off-balance landings.
In snowboard big air, competitors fly down a steep run before launching themselves off a ramp, giving them enough air time to perform spins, flips and other “high amplitude” maneuvers. In Olympic competition, six judges set out a score based on height, technical difficulty, style and clean landing.
In Livigno, most of the competitors did five, five and a half or even six rotations that awed the crowd.