LIVIGNO, Italy — Norway’s Tormod Frostad won gold in the men’s freestyle skiing big air final at the Olympics on Tuesday, unseating compatriot and defending champion Birk Ruud who only managed eighth place in an exceptionally high-scoring nail-biter.
American Mac Forehand took silver while Matěj Švancer of Austria earned bronze and Ruud was left empty-handed at the event under sometimes heavy snow at the Livigno alpine resort.
With the best two scores out of three jumps deciding the winner, Frostad managed a near-perfect 195.5 out of a maximum 200. Forehand and Švancer posted 193.25 and 191.25, respectively.
At Beijing 2022, the top three posted far lower scores, with Ruud getting 187.75 and the other two medallists 183 and 181.
It was the first Olympic victory for 23-year-old Frostad, who was fourth in Sunday’s qualifiers and came 12th in last week’s slopestyle. He is 18th in the overall World Cup rankings.
Forehand, 24, came into the final in hot form after topping the qualifying round and with a big air win at the X Games in January. Švancer, 21, was a surprise second in the qualifiers.
Forehand told reporters after the final that pulling off a 2160-degree nose-butter triple cork, a jump that almost earned him gold, was “a pipe dream.” He had learned versions of the jump with fewer rotations, but this Olympic run was the first time he attempted the six-rotation 2160. And he landed it.
“That’s just how it goes in competing, like you just feel those nerves and those vibes and it just helps so much,” Forehand said.
Ruud, 25, leaves Milano Cortina with a gold in slopestyle, adding to his big air title in 2022. On Tuesday, he posted a high score of 95 in the first run, but fluffed the following two.
In big air, skiers jump off a steep ramp, sometimes backwards, and perform as many flips and turns as they can, before landing as cleanly as possible, reaching speeds of over 60 kph. Judges assess height, technique, originality and other factors.
It is a high-risk discipline that can easily result in injury. In Sunday’s qualifiers, Finland’s Elias Lajunen had to be carried away on a stretcher and taken to the hospital after crashing awkwardly at the end of his first run.
