Snowboard Lee Chae-woon, the first Korea in South Korea, advanced to the halfpipe final... Lee Jio is out by 1.5 points [Milan Olympics]

*This content was translated by AI.

Lee Chae-woon (20, Kyunghee University), a rising snowboarder in South Korea, has advanced to the final round of the men's halfpipe at the 2026 Milan/Cortina D'Ampezzo Winter Olympics.

Lee Chae-woon scored 82.00 points in the men's halfpipe preliminaries for the 2026 Milan-Cortina D'Ampezzo Winter Olympics at Lvigno Snowpark, Italy, on the 12th (Korea Standard Time), advancing to the final round in ninth place overall.

Lee Chae-woon is the first Korean male snowboarder to reach the final round of the Olympics. Lee Chae-woon, who won the ticket to the final round, which will be given to the top 12 players, is aiming for his first individual Olympic medal in the final round at 3:30 a.m. on the 14th.

Lee Chae-woon made all five jumps perfectly and scored 82.00, including the "Switch Backside Double Cork 1080" in which he turned the axis twice in his first attempt and then turned three times.

In the second attempt after virtually confirming the final, the new technology was checked. In the Olympic snowboard halfpipe, if the score in the second period is lower than the score in the first period, the score is not given separately.

Halfpipe events score aerial performances on inclined semi-cylindrical slopes. It determines the superiority and inferiority based on height, difficulty, completeness, and diversity. In the first and second periods of the preliminary round, only one of the higher scores will be adopted to determine the top 12, and in the final round, the highest score will be determined by proceeding until the third period.

Lee Chae-woon made his name by winning the 2020 International Ski Federation (FIS) Asian Cup when he was 14 years old. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, he entered the Olympics as the youngest Korean athlete and emerged as a rising star by winning the 2023 World Championships at the youngest age (16 years and 10 months). Last year, he won a gold medal in men's slopestyle at the Harbin Winter Asian Games, raising expectations for an Olympic medal.

Meanwhile, Lee Ji-oh (18, Yangpyeong High School) and Kim Gun-hee (18, Siheung Mae High School), who participated together, failed to advance to the finals. I felt sorry for Lee Ji-oh. After the second jump in the first attempt, I lost my balance and scored 17.75. In the second attempt, even though the speed was greatly reduced during the first jump landing process, he completed the race until the end and received 74.00 points. It was 1.5 points behind 12th-ranked Jake Pates (75.5 points), and failed to reach the final.

Kim Gun-hee finished 23rd with 8.5 points as she fell early in both attempts.

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*This content was translated by AI.