The weather was once again wild on day 15 of Beijing 2022, with winds up to 28.5km per hour causing delays to the cross country skiing, rough conditions for the men's halfpipe and the postponement of the final Alpine Skiing event.
Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | |
1 | Norway | 15 | 8 | 12 | 35 |
2 | Germany | 11 | 8 | 5 | 24 |
3 | China | 9 | 4 | 2 | 15 |
4 | USA | 8 | 5 | 7 | 24 |
5 | Sweden | 8 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
18 | Australia | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Nico Porteous doubles New Zealand's gold medal count
2018 bronze medallist Nico Porteous returned to the freestyle skiing halfpipe on day 15 with a mission on his mind and it was clear from his first run that his competitors were going to have a hard time catching him.
In windy conditions, the 20-year-old laid down a ridiculous first run that featured back to back 1620s landed with ease in the middle of his run as well as a 1080 and two 900s.
It put him in first with a score of 93.00 giving him a 2.25 point edge over second-ranked athlete David Wise from the United States.
While it was windy in the first run, that was the time when conditions were the best with five of the top six athletes putting down their best run with the first.
Porteous only scored a 30.25 in his second run and a 9.25 in his third which made it a nervous wait at the bottom of the pipe while final competitor Aaron Blunck took to the pipe.
Blunck went for it in the final run but came undone on his third trick a 1080 double with a Japan grab that resulted in him falling hitting his head on the side of the pipe. What should have been a wait at the bottom of the pipe to see who took home gold out of Porteous and Blunck suddenly turned into a nervous wait for everyone to see if the 2019 World Champion was alright.
Luckily he was and Porteous was able to celebrate his win with his brother Miguel, who finished in 11th and the silver and bronze medallists Wise and Alex Ferreira.
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Men's Mass Start event shortened from 50km to 30km
Another victim of the winds on day 15 was the Cross Country Skiing Mass Start event that was delayed by an hour and subsequently shortened from 50km to 30km so that the event would finish in time.
Two Australians were out in force with Philip Bellingham and Seve de Campo concluding their Olympics in the endurance event finishing 53rd and 51st respectively with de Campo finishing ahead of Bellingham for the third time at this Olympics, only finishing behind his countryman in the Freestyle Sprint.
The Aussies were well off the pace of the gold medallist Alexander Bolshunov finishing 9:29.8 and 11:31.1 minutes behind the athlete from ROC respectively.
Bloshunov, winning his third gold and fifth medal of the games finished with a time of 1:11:32.7 to take out gold 5.5 seconds ahead of fellow ROC athlete Ivan Yakimushkin and 7.0 seconds ahead of Norway's Simen Hegstad Krueger who both won their first medals of the games.