LIVIGNO, Italy — The United States has set a new record for gold medals at the Winter Olympics.
It comes in an event where Team USA didn’t have any success early in the Olympics.
Although the competitors were different than in 2022, the U.S. won its second consecutive gold medal in the mixed team aerials event, a sport in which three competitors (one of whom must be female) each perform one jump and have the three scores added together.
This is Team USA’s 11th gold medal at this Olympics, breaking the previous Winter Olympics record set in Salt Lake City 24 years ago.
Although the U.S. aerial skiers didn’t finish on the podium in their individual races — they all seemed to struggle with takeoff speed in the changing wind conditions — they made adjustments for the team race, and their fortunes immediately changed.
Chris Lillis of the Beijing Olympic gold medal team sealed the victory with a double full back jump in the final, pumping his fist as he landed. Although he had to wait for the score to be officially announced, at that moment he had already dunked the ball.
Team USA had an impressive performance, winning six consecutive gold medals cleanly.
Kaila Kuhn started off with a standard back-full-full score of 106.89, putting Team USA immediately at the top of the leaderboard.
Connor Curran followed, executing a perfect landing and turning his palms to the sky like a maestro calling for a standing ovation. Chris Lillis did even better than his teammates, with Team USA’s total score of 351.23 points significantly higher than the other three teams that advanced to the second round (China, Australia and Switzerland).
Unfortunately for Team USA, the score was reset after the first final round, meaning they had to re-execute three spectacular jumps. But it does allow them to adjust their strategy last and based on what other teams are doing.
Kuhn started her first round with a score of 94.44, almost repeating her success – finishing second among the four women, but just 2.15 points behind the Chinese team.
That’s left to the guys.
But after Chinese player Wang Xindi raised the difficulty level with a double-double, but failed to land, the U.S. team’s door to controlling the game seemed old.
Curran retreated and made a jumper, with both backs full. The U.S. team led with 208.16 points, nearly 24 points ahead of the Chinese team.
China’s Li Tianma had a short landing in the third round that caused her skis to slip, setting the stage for Lillis. Lillis needed 89 points to win the gold medal – he got 117.19
The Swiss team won the silver medal and the Chinese team won the bronze medal.
