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Korea looks to teenagers for Olympic snowboarding success

Published: 06 Feb. 2026, 09:42

Choi Ga-on in action during the Snowboard Halfpipe competition at the FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on March 29, 2025. [AP/YONHAP]

Of the 79 Winter Olympic medals Korea has won so far, only one has come from snowboarding — a silver by Lee Sang-ho in the men's parallel giant slalom at PyeongChang 2018.

This month at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games, Korea will turn to a couple of teenagers in the halfpipe to add to that total.

Korea boasts a legitimate medal contender in the women's halfpipe event, as the 17-year-old sensation Choi Ga-on is riding a streak of three consecutive International Ski and Snowboard Federation World Cup victories.

All three of Choi's titles came in the absence of Chloe Kim, the Korean American icon who has won the past two Olympic gold medals. In December, Kim did not compete in the first of Choi's wins in China and withdrew from the final of the second one in the United States due to an injury. Kim then announced in January that she suffered a torn labrum in her shoulder during training, which kept her out of Choi's third win in Switzerland later that month.

It would have helped the Korean to test her mettle against the Olympic champion before her own Winter Games debut. And if Kim recovers in time to chase down a historic third consecutive gold — no snowboarder has won three Olympic gold medals in a row — it will set up a potentially memorable showdown between the superstar and the up-and-comer.

In the men's halfpipe, the 19-year-old Lee Chae-un will be Korea's biggest medal hope. He couldn't get past the qualification round in his Olympic debut in Beijing four years ago, but he has been developing nicely since. In March 2023, Lee, then 16, captured the men's halfpipe world title, becoming the youngest male champion in the competition's history. In January 2024, Lee swept up gold medals in the halfpipe and the slopestyle at the Winter Youth Olympics in Gangwon. Lee added an Asian Winter Games gold medal in the slopestyle to his resume in February 2025.

Korean snowboarder Lee Chae-un smiles after the final of the men's snowboard halfpipe event at the Asian Winter Games was canceled at Yabuli Ski Resort in Yabuli, China, on Feb. 13, 2025. [YONHAP]

A knee surgery in March 2025 threatened to derail Lee's medal hopes, but he's reportedly back healthy.

In the halfpipe, boarders perform acrobatic spins, flips and board grabs while coming down a 22-foot-high slope with a semicylindrical shape. They are judged on five key components: amplitude, difficulty, variety, execution and progression.

They will each get two runs in the qualification round, with the better score of the two being counted. The top 12 will advance to the final, where they will each have three runs. The best score of the three becomes their final result.

Each run is scored between zero and 100 by a panel of six judges, whose scores are averaged after the highest and the lowest scores are removed.

The men's halfpipe qualification is next Wednesday, with the final set for Feb. 13. The women's halfpipe qualification is also next Wednesday, and their final is next Thursday.

All snowboard events will take place at Livigno Snow Park inside the Valtellina Cluster.

Yonhap