Worth the weight

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Carrying a whole nation's expectations on his young shoulders for a second straight time on the world's biggest stage, China's snowboarding sensation Su Yiming confessed he almost couldn't bear it when the mounting pressure took the fun out of his ride.

The weight of Su's Beijing 2022 big air gold medal proved too heavy, his crown slowing him down on the slope and tripping him up when trying new tricks, until he managed to shed the burden — by losing it.

Eleven days after coming up short in defense of his big air title at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, settling for bronze, Su, finally cut free from the anchor of expectation, soared to victory by dominating a strong field with his stylish and fearless runs to win his career-first gold medal in slopestyle on Wednesday.

By performing a series of dazzling tricks on rails and off ramps at the Livigno Snow Park, Su earned 82.41 points from his first run, edging out the 82.13-point first-run effort of Japan's Taiga Hasegawa and American rider Jake Canter's 79.36-point third run to claim gold in the technically challenging event, where, four years ago, Su had to settle for silver.

The victory not only delivered the entire Chinese delegation's first gold at the Games, but had Su feeling over the moon after claiming the title during the Spring Festival — and on his 22nd birthday.

"There's a lot of pressure on the shoulders for sure, trying to get this gold for Team China," said Su.

"That's what I've been thinking about since the big air. I'm so lucky to finally get this done. It means so much, putting this medal around my neck. It's so heavy."

After getting the monkey off his back and raising the red flag over an Olympic podium again, Su couldn't contain his emotions. Tears of joy and pride streamed down his face while singing the national anthem together with the large crowd of Chinese supporters who had traveled to the resort nestled deep in northern Italian Alps.

"So many emotions just came up as I started to realize that today was my birthday, and that my parents were here to support me and my coaches were out there. The emotions just came and I just couldn't stop crying," Su said.