LIVIGNO, Italy — The United States has set a new American record for gold medals won at a Winter Olympics.
And it came from a discipline where Team USA hadn’t had any success earlier in the Games.
Though the participants were somewhat different from 2022, the Americans won a second consecutive gold medal in mixed team aerials, a sport where three participants (one must be a woman) each get one jump and their three scores are added together.
It was the 11th gold of these Games for the U.S., topping its previous Winter Olympics record set in Salt Lake City 24 years ago.
Though none of the American aerials skiers hit the podium during the singles competition — they all seemed to struggle with takeoff speeds in the changing wind conditions — they made adjustments for the team event and their fortunes changed instantly.
Chris Lillis, who was on the gold medal team in Beijing, landed the final, clinching jump with a back double-full-full-full and pumping his fist as he stuck the landing. Though he had to wait for a score to make it official, it was a slam dunk at that point.
It was an impressive performance for the U.S., landing six straight clean runs (between qualifying and the finals) to claim the gold.
In the qualifier to get to the finals, Kaila Kuhn got things started with a standard back-full-full-full for a 106.89 to put the U.S. on top of the leaderboard right away.
Connor Curran followed with back full-double full-full, sticking a picture perfect landing and turning his palms to the sky, like a maestro asking for a standing ovation. After Chris Lillis landed one even better than his teammate, the U.S had a combined score of 351.23 — signicantly more than the other three teams (China, Australia and Switzerland) who advanced to the final round.
Unfortunately for the U.S. team, scores reset after the first final round, meaning they had to execute three terrific jumps all over again. But it did allow them to go last and adjust their strategy in response to other teams.
Kuhn started it with a near-repeat of her first round, scoring 94.44 — second-best among the four women but only 2.15 points behind China.
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That left it up to the guys.
But after China’s Wang Xindi dialed up the degree of difficulty with a back double full-double full-full — and failed to land it — it seemed like the door was open for the Americans to take control.
Curran dialed back for his jump, landing a back full-double full-full to put the U.S. in front with a combined score of 208.16, nearly 24 points ahead of China.
It was all set up for Lillis after China’s Li Tianma landed short and dislodged his skis on the third jump. Lillis needed to score 89 points to secure gold — and he got 117.19
The Swiss took silver and China won bronze.
