LIVIGNO, Italy — China’s Eileen Gu bounced back from a mistake to qualify on Thursday for the Winter Olympics freestyle skiing halfpipe final, giving the defending champion a chance to pick up yet another medal.

Gu crashed on her first run, after clipping the edge of the U-shaped ramp that defines the halfpipe discipline, but more than made up for it with a well-executed second attempt.

“I’m glad I was able to reinforce my sense of self-belief at the moment when it counted,” she said.

With 12 out of 21 competitors going through to Saturday’s final, Gu came fifth with a score of 86.5, out of a maximum of 100. Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin, the 2025 world champion, led the pack on 91.5 points, followed by China’s Li Fanghui with 90.

Atkin prevailed despite pre-competition nerves.

“I’m really happy I was able to kind of manage that nervousness and put down a clean run,” she said. “It’s honestly a really big relief, so I’m super excited for Saturday.”

NASTY CRASH FOR CANADA’S SHARPE

Canada’s Cassie Sharpe, who won halfpipe gold in 2018 and silver in 2022, came in third with 88.25 points, but crashed badly on her second run, prompting a medical intervention.

Rescue operations took several tense minutes during which the crowd fell quiet, but spectators cheered in relief as Sharpe was fit enough to wave her arms while taken away on a stretcher.

In Milan Cortina, 22-year-old Gu has already picked up silver medals in slopestyle and big air, turning her into the most decorated woman in the history of her sport.

The American-born freeskier, who switched to compete for her mother’s native China in 2019, also won golds in big air and halfpipe, plus a silver in slopestyle, at the 2022 Beijing Games.

In halfpipe, riders slide across a U-shaped snow ramp and perform acrobatics in the air. They are awarded points based on height, difficulty, variety of tricks, and other factors.

–Reuters, special to Field Level Media

Golden State Warriors All-Star guard Stephen Curry had an MRI exam that came back clean on his ailing right knee, but he has not returned to practice because of persistent pain and swelling, ESPN reported on Thursday afternoon.

Curry, who turns 38 on March 14, already was ruled out of the Warriors’ home game on Thursday night because of patellofemoral pain syndrome, also known as “runner’s knee.”

He has not played since leaving a Jan. 30 home game against Detroit, missing five contests leading into the All-Star break. He initially felt pain during a Jan. 24 individual workout and kept playing before being sidelined.

Golden State coach Steve Kerr had hoped to have Curry back by Thursday, but Curry told the training staff on Wednesday night that the knee had been flaring up after individual workouts and wasn’t ready for a live scrimmage, ESPN reported.

“Just wasn’t where he needed to be,” Kerr said on Wednesday. “It’s unfortunate.”

A two-time NBA MVP, Curry had to sit out his 12th All-Star Game last weekend. He has missed 16 games to date, but is averaging 27.2 points per game, the fifth-highest per game total of his 17-year career.

“It’s a matter of learning as I go what works rehab-wise,” Curry told ESPN on Feb. 5. “Because it’s still painful. You have to try to get rid of all the inflammation and pain. It’s something we still have to monitor and injury-manage, but it’s something where, if I come back too early, it could flare up.”

–Field Level Media

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin has more records to break, more wins to celebrate and surely more medals to drape around her neck.

But the most successful Alpine skier in World Cup history, and one of the greatest of all time, struggled on Thursday to see far beyond the Milan Cortina Olympics when asked about her sporting future.

“I don’t know if I have an answer for that,” the American told Reuters.

“I’m so in it right now. There’s actually so much left of this season. It’s a big goal for me to be competing for this overall title. And there’s potentially four to six races left in the season for me.

“There’s so many things to look forward to.

“I feel that there’s some kind of transition in my career coming closer, but I don’t know what that looks like and I don’t know how to say it.”

MOST GOLDS BY A U.S. ALPINE SKIER

The 30-year-old now has the most Olympic gold medals ever won by a U.S. skier, along with a record 108 World Cup wins.

Wednesday’s slalom title was her third Olympic gold since the first in 2014 and she now has a total of four Olympic medals.

At world championships, Shiffrin has 15 medals, eight of them gold.

The American, who is engaged to Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, is also heading for her sixth overall World Cup crystal globe, having already secured the smaller slalom one for a record ninth time.

“Every day I go out for training and I love it,” she said. “I love skiing and I love training and I love practicing.

“So I don’t know how it looks for the next four years. Four years feels like a really long time, but also it goes by so fast. So I could tell you something now and then we’d be four years from now, like, ‘Oh. Oopsie.'”

Shiffrin spoke emotionally on Wednesday about the struggle of competing without the presence of her father, who died in 2020, the silent connection she felt after crossing the finish line and a new reality.

“I have wanted to and I have really been angry and resentful of people who talk about feeling their loved one with them after passing,” she said on Thursday.

“And I’ve wanted to talk to my dad so many times and I’ve tried talking to him and he doesn’t respond. And that makes me mad.

“In this race, maybe it was the first time where I thought that I can just talk to him and he doesn’t have to respond. And maybe that was a key thing to accept — the reality that I can win a medal and he’s not here to see it.”

–Reuters, Special to Field Level Media