Choi Gaon: The 17-year-old who fell twice and still won Olympic gold

Dubai: Choi Gaon was not supposed to win.

The 17-year-old South Korean had fallen twice in her first two runs at the women's snowboard halfpipe at Winter Olympics final in Livigno, and her medal chances looked all but gone. But sport has a habit of ignoring the script, and Choi's third and final run changed everything.

Choi Gaon has made history at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, becoming the first athlete from the Republic of Korea to win an Olympic gold medal in a snow event yesterday. The women's snowboard halfpipe final at Livigno Snow Park will be talked about for years, not just because of the result, but because of the extraordinary journey it took to get there.

She did it in her Olympic debut. She did it with an injured knee. And she did it after falling not once, but twice in her earlier runs.

Choi's evening began about as badly as it possibly could. On her opening run, she clipped the edge of the halfpipe attempting a complex trick involving three full rotations, lost her balance on landing and tumbled hard onto the snow. The stadium fell silent as she stayed down far longer than anyone was comfortable with.

When she eventually stood up and rode out of the pipe under her own power, the crowd exhaled with relief. Her score for that run was just 10 points out of a possible 100.

Things did not immediately improve on her second attempt. A "Did Not Start" notice briefly appeared next to her name on the scoreboard, causing momentary confusion. She did eventually appear at the top of the pipe to huge cheers from the crowd, but fell again on her opening trick after losing her balance. Her medal hopes appeared to be slipping away entirely.

What happened next is the kind of moment that reminds you why sports is always worth a watch.

On her third and final run, Choi came out and delivered a performance of extraordinary composure and skill. She landed every single trick cleanly, opening with a switch backside 900 mute grab, a move where she takes off in her non-dominant stance and spins two and a half rotations whilst holding a specific position, and closing with a frontside 720 Indy grab, a two-rotation aerial featuring a precise grab between the bindings.

When the scoreboard flashed 90.25 points, Choi immediately burst into tears, covering her face with her gloves as the magnitude of the moment hit her. She had moved into first place, with only two-time Olympic champion Chloe Kim still to ride.

Kim, who had long been Choi's idol and hero growing up, fell on her final attempt. The gold medal belonged to Choi Gaon.

What made the victory even more remarkable was revealed afterwards. Choi had walked to the podium with a visible limp, still feeling significant pain in her knee from her earlier falls. She broke down in tears again as South Korea's national anthem played and the national flag was raised above the arena.

When asked why she continued despite the pain and the falls, her answer was simple and deeply moving. "If this had been a World Cup, I might have stopped right away," she told the press. "But this was the Olympics, something I've dreamed of since I was seven, so I focused on the tricks."

The result also saw Choi become the youngest women's halfpipe Olympic champion in history, breaking the previous record set by Chloe Kim at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics by approximately seven months. The fact that she dethroned her own idol to claim that record adds another layer of poignancy to an already remarkable story.

Kim, who won silver with a score of 88.00, was amongst the first to rush over and congratulate the teenage champion with a warm embrace. Japan's Ono Mitsuki claimed the bronze medal with a score of 85.00.

Choi's victory is not just a personal milestone. It is a landmark moment for South Korean winter sport and a powerful statement about where women's snowboarding is heading. At just 17, with her first Olympic gold already secured, she has made her ambitions for the future equally clear.

"I want to become an athlete who continues to surpass her own limits," she said at the end.

Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.