Olympics-Freestyle-Gu retains halfpipe title for record sixth Olympic medal

By Lisa Richwine

LIVIGNO, Italy, Feb 22 (Reuters) – China’s Eileen Gu retained her women’s halfpipe crown at the Winter Games on Sunday to become the most decorated Olympic freestyle skier of all time with six medals.      

Gu’s compatriot Li Fanghui won silver, and the bronze went to Zoe Atkin of Britain.

After a disappointing opening round, Gu nailed her second and third runs to top the standings with a score of 94.75 and add a gold to the silver medals she had won in Livigno in big air and slopestyle.

The 22-year-old, who won two golds and a silver on home snow at the Beijing Olympics four years ago, moved out of a tie with Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury at the top of the all-time freeski Olympic medal table.

Li nailed her second run to move into second place and improved her score to 93.00 on her third attempt with only Atkin left to go.

World champion Atkin, like Gu born in the United States but representing the country of one of her parents, put down her best run of the day to round out the final but only managed a score of 92.50 and had to settle for bronze.

The final was due to take place on Saturday but was postponed because of heavy snowfall in the Italian Alpine resort.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine, writing by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Ed Osmond)