Birk Ruud wins Olympic Slopestyle gold on error filled afternoon

On Tuesday afternoon, under overcast skies, it was the turn of the men to battle it out for the first freeski medals of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics. Conditions were tricky, with flat inconsistent light playing a role in the much anticipated finals. Be it the light, the course or the occasion, the Olympic Slopestyle final was somewhat of an anticlimax with many of the riders making mistakes even with three bites of the cherry. 

The finals got off to a spluttering start with lots of crashes and big errors. Just like in qualification, and the women’s contest, the first rail pad seemed to be cursed, with many of the riders pushing out the start hut and immediately throwing away their runs. 

Ben Barclay was the first to put down a full pull, but missed a grab on his final right double cork 1620. It wasn’t until Mr. Consistent Andri Ragettli dropped in that the bar was truly set. With a run including both way 450 pretzel 270s and both way double bios, it ticked a lot of boxes, scoring well across all sections—as well as in composition—to add up to a 78.65. Preliminarily, he sat in first place, and was unable to improve this score during the next two runs and would, for the second Olympic cycle in a row, finish with the (Swiss) chocolate medal in fourth, agonisingly outside the podium once more.

Matej Svancer was on the way to lighting up the finals with an insane run, so difficult even he wasn’t able to put it down in three attempts. He starts with a switch left deliberate death tap 270 continuing back 450 on the DFD, to switch right tokyo drift 270 to forward, into a left foot front 540 swap over the transfer continuing back 270—a combo that scored comfortably the highest in that section for the day. In his following two runs was never able to put all the elements together, first run crashing going too big on the first jump, second run cursed on the first rail and the final run was unable to get the tricks he was planning. Such was the theme of the finals, with the templates of some of the best slopestyle runs ever thought up, devastatingly robbed from us by major mistakes and inconsistencies. 

Next to—pretty much—stomp a run was Jesper Tjader, whose switch blender overflip disaster to switch is a jaw dropping opening trick straight out of his Unrailistic handbook. He would wash a landing and fumble a grab to score a respectable 77.21. Jesper would fall victim to the curse of the top rails and be unable to improve this score, eventually finishing in 5th.

It was Birk Rudd, dropping last having won the qualifications, who set what would be an insurmountable score on the first time of asking. His run was technical throughout, with all four directions, and variety sprinkled on top. A switch left 450 continuing 450 disaster on the first rail, into a left 450 pretzel 270 on a rail so short some of the rest of the field were opting for only a 270 on, into a switch right 360 continuing blender switch right 270 up onto the rail to forward—clearly wanting a spin out of this rail but had to settle—into an edge-catch tempting Mach 12 tokyo drift onto the cannon right back bio 810 out: heavy rails, well put together. Birk didn’t hold back on the jumps either, starting with a switch right double cork 1800, into a switch left double cork 1620 blunt, which he held long enough to be accused of hogging the joint, finishing with a right nose butter double cork 1620. He scored big considering it wasn’t a perfect run, with a big open and a heavy landing in his jumps, and clearly not getting his spin off the rail. At the time it was an undebatable first place.

Greasing a run on his second try, Alex Hall would make it back-to-back Olympic Slopestyle medals finishing with silver this time. His run was full of the flavour you’d expect from AHall; 50-50 360 swaps, a switch double cork bring back 720 double japan, and a switch tails 270 pretzel 270 through the DFD. 

This down-flat-down was savage, taking the lives of many a run almost before they’d even started—the kink was so aggressive it gave some of the kinks in the Epstein files a run for their money. AHall was just about the only person apart from Henry Sildaru to successfully ski through it, and the grace with which he tricked it earned him the highest section score of the day here. Having also scored highest out of everyone in section three,  it was looking on for a repeat of 2022, but the jumps are where Alex lost it. A hand punch on a double cork 1620 mute and switch double cork 1440 lead japan that got hammered, kept him from walking away with his second gold.

With Birk still out in front, Kiwi Luca Harrington, X-Games slopestyle back-to-back winner, left it to his last run to put one to his feet. The jumps on the Livigno course have taken some stick for being too small, and Luca was struggling to measure his usually robotically consistent switch triple 1620 on the second hit, crashing out twice. 

His final run though, everything clicked. Starting with a right 630 continuing 270 that scored huge and was backed up by some heavy jumps: a switch left double cork 1800 japan, into the switch triple cindy finishing with what is possible an NBD in contest a right double cork 1440 bring back to 1260 cindy. 

In terms of the section scores, Luca had done enough to win, scoring the highest combined section scores of the day. However, the composition judges scored him a full three points less than the other two on the podium. This can be explained by a lack of variety on his grab choices, grabbing cindy (an unfavourable grab in the first place) twice. Luca is also missing a spin direction, never taking off forward left. 

Variety is given exaggerated weight for the composition judges because they are the only judges who are keeping an eye on this, while the section judges are solely focused on their individual sections. If you give the composition judges an excuse to dock you on variety, they need to make sure that shows up in their score, and on this day unfortunately Luca fell foul of this.

Birk Ruud quit snowboarding to stay focussed on becoming the very best skier he could be, with his focus on this Olympic Games. He has peaked at the right time, showing consistency and his outrageous ability to land a run when the pressure is on.

He took a victory lap, and with a steely look he dropped in trying to improve his score—this was no showboat. However, Birk reminded us all that he is in fact human by taking a huge slam in the second rail pad, smashing his chiselled face into the hard Italian snow splitting his lip open. He appeared in the finish area spitting blood as it ran down his chin—no doubt a cheap price to pay for Olympic gold.