11-year-old finishes second in Dew Tour snowboard halfpipe
Patti Zhou, an 11-year-old snowboarder from China who is too young for the next Olympics, finished runner-up in the Dew Tour halfpipe in Copper Mountain, Colorado, on Saturday.
Zhou’s 90.66-point run included a switch backside 900, cab 720, frontside 540 and backside 540, according to contest organizers.
Zhou finished second behind another phenom — 14-year-old South Korean Gaon Choi, who last month broke her mentor Chloe Kim‘s record as the youngest X Games snowboard halfpipe champion.
The five-woman final had zero Olympians.
Kim hasn’t competed since last year’s Olympics but said in April that she plans to return for a 2026 Winter Games bid.
Unless rules are changed, Zhou cannot compete at the next Olympics because, traditionally, the Olympic age minimum in snowboarding has been 15. Kim missed the 2014 Sochi Games because she was 13 at the time.
Raised in China, Zhou and her family settled into Silverthorne, Colorado. She jokes that she tells people she’s from, “Beijing, Colorado.”
In 2020, an 8-year-old Zhou posted video of her landing a 720 in a halfpipe, according to the International Ski Federation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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11-year-old finishes second in Dew Tour snowboard halfpipe originally appeared on NBCSports.com
