U.S. Olympic team spots in snowboard halfpipe and freeski halfpipe are on the line this week as the park and pipe World Cup circuit visits Copper Mountain in Colorado for a U.S. Grand Prix event.
Copper is the second World Cup stop of the season for halfpipe and comes on the heels of last week’s event in China. It’s also the first of three selection events for the U.S. snowboard team and the second of four events for the U.S. freeski team.
The selection criteria is slightly different for each sport, but the important thing to know is that most of the remaining spots will go to the athletes with the best single result at one of the selection events.
Below is a preview of each event, along with details on how to watch the finals.
Snowboard Halfpipe
- Date: Friday, Dec. 19
- Time: 2 p.m. ET
- Platform: Outside TV
- TV Broadcast (Delayed): Saturday at 1:30 p.m. ET on CNBC and Peacock
Thanks to her results last season, Chloe Kim is already qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. The two-time reigning Olympic champion is making her season debut this week and had the top score in Wednesday’s qualifying round.
Three spots remain up for grabs on the women’s halfpipe team. The first two spots will automatically be filled by the riders with the best finish at a selection event. Maddie Mastro, Bea Kim and Maddy Schaffrick will be the Americans joining Chloe in Friday’s final and looking to get a strong result on the board.
The international field is headlined by Gaon Choi, Sena Tomita and Rise Kudo.
On the men’s side, U.S. riders will look to capitalize on the absence of two of the Olympic favorites: Australia’s Scotty James and Japan’s Ayumu Hirano. Both riders opted to skip this event.
Even with Ayumu missing, Japan will still be difficult to beat with Yuto Totsuka and Ruka Hirano leading the charge.
Six Americans advanced to Friday’s final, led by No. 2 qualifier Alessandro Barbieri. This could be a huge season for the 17-year-old, who has already landed must-have tricks like the triple cork and has even more in his bag:
No male snowboarders have qualified for the U.S. Olympic team yet in halfpipe, leaving all four spots still available.
Freeski Halfpipe
- Date: Saturday, Dec. 20
- Time: 2 p.m. ET
- Platform: Outside TV
Alex Ferreira is the only skier qualified for the U.S. halfpipe team thus far and will open his 2025-26 season at Copper Mountain as he builds toward Milan Cortina with eyes on his first Olympic gold medal.
With Ferreira’s spot locked down, three additional men’s spots remain available. Up to two of those spots can automatically be filled by the skiers with the best result at a selection event, but those skiers must have a top-three finish to trigger that automatic selection. After that, discretionary selections could potentially start coming into play. (For the snowboarders, the bar to clear is just a top-10 finish.)
Hunter Hess (3rd) was the top U.S. finisher at last week’s first selection event, giving him the edge for automatic nomination right now. Birk Irving (4th), Matt Labaugh (5th) and Nick Geiser (6th) finished just behind Hess. Two-time Olympic champion David Wise was 12th.
One key skier who didn’t compete at that first event was Nick Goepper, who was still recovering from an earlier crash at a Snow League event. Goepper, after a switch from slopestyle to halfpipe during this Olympic cycle, emerged as a gold-medal contender last season.
The competition to make the U.S. team is particularly tough in men’s freeski halfpipe, given that Americans made up seven of the top 10 in last year’s World Cup standings. The three international skiers in that top 10 (Brendan Mackay, Fin Melville Ives, Luke Harrold) are not competing at Copper.
On the women’s side, the competition for the four U.S. spots remains wide open after no American made the final last week. Up to three spots can automatically be filled, but, as with the men, only a top-three finish would trigger that first wave of automatic selection.
Svea Irving, who did not compete in that first event, will be at Copper and was the top American on the World Cup circuit last season.
There’s also Hanna Faulhaber, who will be competing for the first time in one year. Faulhaber won the world title in 2023 but tore her ACL and MCL a year later. Last year’s event at Copper was the only World Cup stop she’s competed in since the injury.
With Eileen Gu absent from this event, the international women’s field is headlined by reigning world champion Zoe Atkin of Great Britain.
Qualifying for the men’s and women’s freeski halfpipe events takes place on Thursday, with finals to come on Saturday.