Thrills, spills 'n' chills

Possibly the coolest sport at the Games promises to be a wild ride

Snowboarding is one of the newer sports on the Winter Olympic program, having first been included in 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Since then, it has firmly established itself as one of the most popular and coolest sports at the Games.

Beijing 2022 will feature 11 snowboard events, including the newly introduced mixed team snowboard cross-a thrilling, adrenaline-fueled ride that viewers won't want to take their eyes off.

The event sees two-person, mixed-gender teams race against each other, with men going first. Any time advantage the male rider holds over his opponent is then transferred to his female teammate. The first woman over the line wins the race.

A total of 238 of the world's best snowboarders will compete for Olympic glory in Beijing. Threetime Olympic halfpipe champion Shaun White of the United States couldn't hide his excitement at qualifying for Beijing 2022 thanks to a third-place finish at the Laax Open in Switzerland on Jan 16. The 35-year-old legend will be competing at his fifth and very likely last Olympics. "I haven't really said this too much, so it's going to feel weird coming out of my mouth, but this is I think my last run," he said of the Beijing Games.

Although White had to sweat out his spot on the US team after a difficult month of qualifying that included coping with a COVID-19 infection and an injured ankle, he will surely go all out for glory in Beijing before the legendary "Flying Tomato" retires.

Ayumu Hirano of Japan who won silver in the halfpipe at Pyeongchang 2018 and Sochi 2014 is the favorite for halfpipe gold after wrapping up his first overall World Cup title this season. What's more, Hirano performed the first-ever triple cork in competition this season, sending expectations soaring that he could repeat the feat in Beijing.

In the snowboard cross, the retirement of two-time reigning Olympic champion Pierre Vaultier of France means there will be a new gold medalist in the event for the first time since 2010.

Two-time Olympian Lucas Eguibar of Spain won't just be competing for himself but also for his brother, who was also a professional snowboarder before being involved in a serious motorbike crash that left him with brain damage.

Other names to look out for in the men's field include Pyeongchang slopestyle gold medalist Redmond Gerard of the US, reigning Big Air champion Sebastien Toutant of Canada, and Pyeongchang parallel giant slalom gold medalist Nevin Galmarini of Switzerland.

Su Yiming, 17, who in December became the first male Chinese snowboarder to win a Big Air World Cup title, is expected to excel on home snow.

On the women's side, halfpipe Olympic champion Chloe Kim of the US has triumphed in every World Cup event this season. At the age of 17, Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboard gold medal in 2018.

Meanwhile, Chinese veteran Cai Xuetong is poised to make her fourth Olympic appearance after winning the halfpipe World Cup title in Colorado in December.

As each snowboard event requires unique skillsets, there are rarely multiple medalists in the competition at the Games. In fact, at Pyeongchang, the only athlete to win more than one medal was Jamie Anderson of the US, who won gold in the women's slopestyle and silver in the Big Air. As the most decorated woman in X Games history with 17 medals, she will be hard to beat in the slopestyle.

Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic made history in Pyeongchang by becoming the first person to win gold medals in both skiing and snowboarding, claiming the snowboard parallel giant slalom and the super-G in skiing. She will defend both of those titles in Beijing.