Su wins historic men's snowboard Big Air gold as China soars new Olympic heights

Xinhua

Chinese teenage sensation Su Yiming claimed the Olympic gold medal in the men's snowboard Big Air with a stylish show on Tuesday, adding to his silver medal in the slopestyle event.

Su's success at Big Air Shougang has lifted China's haul of medals to 12, including six golds, four silvers and two bronzes, surpassing its previous best of 11 medals won at Vancouver 2010.

"I secured the gold medal already after two runs," said Su, who burst into tears before going down the slope in the final run. "It was such a special moment for me. I thought about challenging myself again but I just couldn't help crying. I just wanted to enjoy the moment."

Mons Roisland of Norway took the silver, while Max Parrot of Canada, who took gold in the slopestyle, finished third.

Placing fifth in the qualification on Monday, Su went eighth after five riders had dropped performances that scored more than 80 points, with Chris Corning stomping a backside quad cork 1800 melon for 92.00 points.

Su didn't seem to be impacted but delivered a frontside 1800 tail grab to receive 89.50 points - the second-highest score of the run, while his main competitor Parrot failed to land his trick and ranked ninth.

In his second run, Su threw in a perfect backside triple cork 1800 Indy to collect 93.00 points and moved top with a total score of 182.50.

With a crash in his first run, Parrot repeated the trick in the second round and improved his score but had a flaw on the landing when attempting a frontside triple cork 1620 weddle in the final round.

As Roisland scored a combined score of 171.75 points to outscore Parrot into second place, Su secured his gold medal before his final run to become China's youngest ever Winter Olympic champion.

"I expected to be here (in the final), but not in second position," said Roisland.

"Coming into this, my mindset was just to do as good as I could and I didn't have any expectations for podium. Maybe, if I get lucky, if I push it, maybe I make it, but I didn't think much of it."

"It's crazy, definitely amazing," said Parrot who took his second medal at the Beijing Games. "This is my third Olympics, and third medal. To get two medals out of the same Games I'm extremely proud of myself."