U.S. skiers Hall, Goepper finish one-two in men's slopestyle final at Beijing 2022

CHONGLI, Zhangjiakou, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. skiers Alexander Hall and Nicholas Goepper earned a one-two finish in the men's slopestyle final at Beijing 2022 here on Wednesday.

Hall, 23, jumped to the top of the podium with a brilliant performance in his first run, pocketing the eventual winning score of 90.01 points.

"Honestly I was really, really surprised I landed the first run. I had done some parts of the run, but definitely not the whole thing altogether," said Hall after the final.

"It definitely was the best slopestyle run I've ever done, mainly because it embodied everything I love about skiing and how I approach skiing, and I didn't fade away from that to try and maybe get bigger scores or something," he added.

In Tuesday's slopestyle qualification, Hall ranked fifth with 79.13 points from his first run.

Making his Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018 and finishing 16th in the slopestyle, Hall raised his form to the peak with the 2021 World Championships slopestyle bronze medal, and three World Cup victories in slopestyle, the most recent at Mammoth, United States, in January. He was also No. 2 in the World Cup slopestyle rankings for the 2021-22 season.

Before the slopestyle, Hall competed in the Olympic free ski Big Air final on February 9 in Shougang and finished eighth.

Goepper, 27, the silver medalist at PyeongChang 2018, retained his silver medal at Beijing 2022 with 86.48 earned from his second run in the final.

"I was real nervous. I kind of messed up a little bit on the first rail on the first run, "said Goepper.

"On the second run, I nailed most of the run, there were a couple of bubbles. It wasn't perfect, so I was surprised that it got that high of a score, but everyone was experiencing the Olympic jitters today and it was just a matter of putting one down, top to bottom," he added.

Goepper also attended the Big Air competition in Beijing, but finished 22nd in the qualification, failing to enter the top 12 for the final.

Jesper Tjader from Sweden, who finished fourth in Tuesday's qualification with 79.38 points, took the bronze with 85.35 from his first run in the final.

"It means a lot. My goal with the Olympics is to land my best run ever, and today I finally landed it. I couldn't be more stoked," Tjader said. "I've never done that switch triple on the second jump in a slopestyle run, so that was the first time I've done it in a run."

Trader finished seventh in the Big Air final in Beijing on February 9.

Norwegian Bird Ruud, the men's freeski Big Air champion at Beijing 2022, finished 5th in the slopestyle final with his third-run score of 79.33 after mishaps in the first two rounds.