Alex Hall Takes Silver Behind Birk Ruud in Men's Olympic Slopestyle Finals

Featured Image: Courtesy of U.S. Ski Team | Skier: Mac Forehand

While the girls were graced with great weather yesterday, the guys were dealt a gray, low-light day today for the men's Olympic Slopestyle finals. Despite the less-than-ideal visibility and the tricky course setup, the men truly gave it their all, attempting their best and hardest tricks. The best of three runs, slopestyle is especially difficult to put down a clean, consistent run top to bottom, rails to jumps, run after run, and because of that we saw a lot of mistakes in pursuit of technical perfection. Ultimately, it was Birk Ruud who took home the gold for Norway, reigning slopestyle champion from the 2022 Beijing Games, Alex Hall (USA), settled for the silver medal and Luca Harrington got the bronze for New Zealand.

Ruud took the lead off the bat in run one, despite not tricking off the long down rail in the first section of the course and a loose nosebutter double cork 1620 on the final jump. Judges rewarded the creativity, though, and gave Ruud the upper hand going into run two with a score of 86.28. Given the level of difficulty of everyone's tricks, only four men landed a clean run on the first go around, leaving plenty of room on the podium for anyone's taking.

The struggle to land a clean run continued for many of the athletes on run two but Alex Hall's smooth and composed nature pulled it all together to come within half a point of Ruud for the top spot. A-Hall's rails section was tight and technical, landing 360 swaps both ways on the transfer and the rainbow rails and then lacing the three modestly sized jumps with a double cork 1620, followed by a switch tailbutter 1440 and then his signature switch double cork 1080 with the double japan grab bringback where he reverts the last rotation to land switch. While Ruud's rail section was technically better on his second run, highlighting the decision not to trick out of the down rail on run one, his jump section was too loose to improve his score. Konnor Ralph was able to put a run together his second go around but only produced a modest score of 66.76—the second highest score on run two, after Hall, but only good enough for ninth overall.

For a lot of the men in today's slopestyle final, the pressure came hammering down on run three to land every rail and jump clean. All three Americans were unable to do so, leaving Hall dependent on his second run score to carry him through, as well as Ralph, and Mac Forehand frustrated with his mistakes on all three runs. Luca Harrington, on the other hand, pulls off the highest score of the third round with a massive 630-degree rotation onto the first rail and a wild screamin' seaman out of the cannon feature straight into a switch triple cork, a 1440 bringback and a 1260 in the jump section. The energy at the bottom was electric for Harrington, with announcer Tom Wallisch claiming the run was good enough to beat out Ruud, but alas, the judges awarded the kiwi with a score of 85.15—bronze it is.

It was a tough day for a lot of the competitors. Despite being an Olympic rookie, Ralph showed he has the jump tricks to compete with the best of them, he just couldn't seem to lace the rail sections. Forehand's struggle to put anything down today is one I'm sure we can all relate with, including big names like Jesper Tjader and Andri Ragettli, who also struggled to put down their best tricks. But the Olympic journey is not over yet, the men's Olympic Big Air qualifications are set for Sunday, February 15 at 11:30 AM (MST) on the Peacock app.

2026 Men's Olympic Slopestyle Final Results: