After complaints for a week over high temperatures and a dodgy Pipe, everything swang the other way for the Halfpipe today. Full blizzard conditions threatened the final runs, but whilst it definitely slowed the pipe down a little it did nothing to dampen the performance levels.
After the first run it was American David Wise who laid down the law with a solid 92 point ride, the only man to beat him in qualifying Canadian Justin Dorey was arguably on an even better run before crashing out. But as the blizzard conditions persisted it was going to be all about who could handle the pressure and step it up on the second run.
By mid way in the second runs no one had broken the 85 point mark and it was looking like it was going to be a showdown between the top five. Frances’ Benoit Valentin laid down a solid run but fell short of a medal, and David Wise failed to up his 92 points but had to wait for Justin Dorey to drop last, if he could nail a run, anything could of happened. Justin Dorey went huge but couldn’t hold it together leaving David Wise to take gold for the US, Mike Riddle in silver for Canada and Frenchman Kevin Rolland in Bronze. It was another epic final, proving how important the extreme park is for drama in the winter Olympics.