The men’s freestyle skiing slopestyle event has been held at the Olympics three times, and Nick Goepper has stood atop the podium on all three occasions.
After winning bronze at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and silver at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Goepper secured another silver in Beijing on Tuesday with a top score of 86.48 on his second run.
Goepper, who finished third in qualifying, was solid on the rails before entering the jumps. He nailed a switch double-twist Misty 1260 on the first jump, utilized the quarterpipe takeoff on the second jump and ended the run with an inverted 1440.
Goepper’s score of 86.48 stood as his top mark after he received a 47.75 mark on his first run and 53.45 mark in his final run. The number is noticeably lower than his medal-winning scores in Sochi (92.40) and PyeongChang (93.60). It was also a level lower than American teammate Alex Hall, who earned gold in Beijing with a 90.01 in his opening run. Still, it gave him the edge over Sweden’s Jesper Tjader, who earned bronze with a top score of 85.35, and the rest of the field.
This marks the second time Team USA has earned multiple medals in the event. Goepper was a part of a podium sweep in 2014 alongside gold-winning Joss Christensen and silver-winning Gus Kenworthy.
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Goepper’s Beijing journey is now over, as the slopestyle was his second and final event. Earlier in the Games, he placed 22nd in big air qualifying.
