Slovenian Tit Stante went a long way up. Unfortunately, that’s also a long way down, and he landed badly. It’s a sad ride down to the bottom.

Japan’s Kaishu Hirano also dares to touch the heavens, and he keeps it going. He puts a hand down on a landing later in the run, and that’s enough to keep him out of the 80s. But he improves slightly to 77.25. At eighth place, he’ll be a little nervous but is more likely in than out.

Two Australians in the final! Almost certainly. Valentino Guseli shook off his first-run frustration with high amplitude and smooth landings. The 1260 at the end clinches a score of 85.75, currently fourth.

Before Guseli’s run, Korean teenager Lee Chaeun looked like he was bound for the final until crashing at the very end of the run. He got up with a resigned smile.

The second women’s slalom run is coming up. In this format, the top 30 skiers from the first run are inverted from 30th to 1st, so the last skiers know what they need to do to make the podium. Times are cumulative, of course. I’ll keep an eye on it, but the leaders likely won’t go until this halfpipe qualification is done.

Switzerland’s Jan Scherrer had what seemed to be a middling run last time, but that may have been because he had the misfortune of following James. This time, he lands a 79.25, which is probably enough. Probably. A lot of riders are capable of changing their 15.75s to 85.75s.

Gao Hongbo, who had the strange 15.00 run with no rotations in the first run, passed up his second run. Gu Ao comes up next instead and improves from 50.25 to 58.20. He’s 11th, and that’s not a comfortable place to be.

“Last week, messed around and got a triple-double,” Ice Cube said in the cleaner version of It Was A Good Day.

Ayuma Hirano just messed around and got a 93.25.

It seems the Japanese riders didn’t really care that their qualification is all but assured. Ruka Hirano laid down a run of 87.00.

What will Scotty James do in response? Plenty. It’s the same run through the first three hits, but the last is a promotion from a 1260 to 1440. He playfully rides up to the lip of the pipe and plants himself there at the finish. That’s a 91.25. See you in the final.

Men’s halfpipe qualifying standings after the first run of two (top score counts):

1. Scotty James (AUS) 88.25
2. Ayumu Hirano (JPN) 87.25
3. Yuto Totsuka (JPN) 84.50
4. Taylor Gold (USA) 81.25
5. Ruka Hirano (JPN) 80.75

Those are the five who are probably safe. After that, the scores drop so sharply that Ireland’s Seamus O’Connor is 11th with a 57.00 and China’s Gu Ao sits on the bubble at 50.25.

So while only one American is in the top 12 right now, it won’t take much to shake things up.

Those of us of a certain age remember when Shaun White was a prodigy in 2006. Now he has a resume too long to list, and age 35, he has worked his way back to the top level while being sporadically active. The first 80% of his run is vintage White. The next landing is not. He’s underrotated, and he can’t stay upright. He’ll need to make good on his second run.

The USA’s Taylor Gold just went big — at least in parts of his run. He loses momentum midway through but finishes strong and stays clean, good for an 81.25 and fourth place. That’ll likely assure his qualification.

China’s Wang Ziyang crashes, and that brings up the three-time gold medalist, Shaun White …

Mikaela Shiffrin spoke with reporters at length after her shocking exit in the slalom. The emotion of suddenly losing her father is still with her, especially in a situation like this, with two quick departures in these Olympics.

But while the comparisons to Simone Biles are inevitable, Shiffrin insists she will compete in the rest of the races on the Alpine program.

Canadian teen Liam Gill has a small crash. Like everyone else so far, he’s unhurt. That must be a relief to anyone who has seen him break his collarbone twice in his mid-teens.

The USA’s Lucas Foster has a great run most of the way down. He has one bad landing but stays up. That one bad landing knocks him down to a 42.00. This isn’t figure skating, where a skater can medal even with a fall.

Next: Louis Vito, who was fifth in the 2010 Olympics competing for the USA. He now competes for Italy. At age 33, he’s still got it, getting some amplitude up around 22 feet on a run that opens with a double cork 1260. Judges? 60.25.

And now another US resident competing elsewhere — Ireland’s Seamus O’Connor. He’s just 24 but is in his first Olympics. He alternates small tricks with big ones and, like Vito, gets about 22 feet above the lip of the pipe. That’s good for a 57.

This is, of course, what you all want to know. When can we see curling again?

Soon enough. You can either stay up another seven hours or go to sleep now and set an alarm.

Australia’s Valentino Guseli is just 16, younger than most of the music being played at the venue (current: Jimi Hendrix). He lets loose an audible exclamation after landing hard on the lip of the pipe, but he brilliantly salvages the rest of the run. His score of 31.75 seems harsh. If you can land a double cork 1080 and a 1260 after a hard landing, shouldn’t that impress the judges?

No one asked me, of course.

We’ve seen a couple of crashes and mistakes since that opening quartet Hirano, Hirano, Totsuka and James delivered such astounding runs.

The next Hirano, Kaishu, returns the competition to elite level with high amplitude and controlled rotations. Not quite the variety of grabs and moves to challenge the leaders, but that’s considerably better.

A curious effort here from China’s Gao Hongbo, who tries no rotational tricks at all on his way down. It’s rare to get a 15.00 without falling, but Gao can now add that dubious accomplishment to his resume.

Gu Ao gives a better representation of Chinese snowboarding with a couple of double cork 1080s. It’s only a 50.25, but at least it resembles world-class halfpipe action.

Scotty James, one of the top Australian winter athletes by any measure, is a three-time world champion and the 2018 bronze medalist.

And my goodness — save something for the final, won’t you? James just ramped up the difficulty all the way down the halfpipe, ending with two double cork 1260s.

The PA blares some AC/DC as James moves into first with an 88.25 and says hello to various relatives and friends via the camera at the finish.

This is just the first run of qualification? Exceptional stuff here by all four riders so far.

Ayumu Hirano is the two-time defending silver medalist, if it makes sense to “defend” a silver medal. He’s also first in this year’s World Cup standings. He also competed in skateboarding in the Olympics in his home country last summer.

He’s good, in other words.

And he certainly showed it here. Double cork 1080, double cork 1080, 900, 900, 1260, and dizzying heights. (“Amplitude” is the more apt word.)

That’s an 87.25. He won’t have any trouble qualifying.

(Same format as the women — two runs, best score counts, top 12 advance to final.)

Notable names in the men’s halfpipe qualification start list …

1-3 Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, Ruka Hirano and Yuto Tosuka
4 Scotty James (AUS)
9 Valentino Guseli (AUS)
11 Kaishu Hirano (JPN)
12 Liam Gill (JPN)
14 Lucas Foster (USA)
17 Seamus O’Connor (IRL)
20 Taylor Gold (USA)
23 Shaun White (USA)
25 Chase Josey (USA)

Ayuma and Kaishu are brothers. Ruka is not.

At this hour …

It’s just a slow day for some reason. The only action right now is in snowboardcross, where half the field is going down the course to see how bad their seeds will be for the knockout rounds.

But we have men’s halfpipe qualification coming up in 10 minutes. That’ll have the stage to itself for 1 1/4 hours until the women’s slalom has its second run with its two stars either out (Shiffrin) or far back (Vlhova).

Over to snowboardcross now, where Team GB’s Charlotte Bankes has set the second-fastest time in qualifying. All four Americans — Stacy Gaskill (fourth), Lindsey Jacobellis (fifth), Faye Gulini (seventh) and Meghan Tierney (16th) — broke into the top 16 and can sit out the second run.

And silver to the USA’s Colby Stevenson.

The ebullient veteran Henrik Harlaut of Sweden nearly bumped ahead of Stevenson. But he seems quite content to share the podium, exulting after seeing his score of 91.00 posted.

Ruud is taking his final run with a Norwegian flag in his hand. And he still lands it. Legend.

And no! Donaggio can’t stick the landing, and Colby Stevenson will finish no worse than third. It’ll get scant attention compared with Shiffrin’s disaster and may even be overshadowed by the “US snowboarders other than Chloe Kim can’t qualify” story, but it’s something for US fans to celebrate in a week that hasn’t been what they’ve hoped.

Can Colby Stevenson get a medal? It’s looking more likely. Sweden’s Oliwer Magnusson has a nice-looking tail grab and gets a 90.75, good but not enough to pass the American.

Norway’s Birk Ruud has clinched a medal and will almost certainly take gold. The next two to go, Italy’s Leonardo Donaggio and Sweden’s Henrik Harlaut, will need to go well over 90 to beat Stevenson …

Alex Hall is up, up, away … and he just never looked like he was in control. He went off-axis and never returned to on-axis. We’re told it was an attempt at a 2160, which is six full rotations.

Four to go.

The last run of the big air competition goes in reverse order of the current standings.

The third man to go, Spain’s Javier Lliso, won’t medal, but he has a happy moment with friends and family back home via the screen setup at the finish.

Next up: the USA’s Colby Stevenson. That looked impressive. Might that get him in contention?

How does anyone judge this sport? In the women’s event, Gu and Ledeux were obviously better than the rest. Here? They’re all landing 1620s and 1800s.

But this 1800 is indeed enough to get Stevenson into contention. It’s a 91.25. His best two add up to a 183.00, second to Birk Ruud.

Another question: How do these guys not get hurt? Well, they do, on occasion, but the angle of the landing slope and their helmets must be pretty good if people like Norway’s Christian Nummedal can just walk away from faceplants like that.

Canada’s Evan McEachran also can’t stick the landing.

Six skiers to go. We might see a US medal here.

The women’s slalom first run is still going, but we’re very much into the “participation trophy” phase of the competition. Next up is Iran’s Atefeh Ahmadi, and while it’s tempting to be snarky about the snail’s pace she’s setting on her way to finishing nearly 20 seconds behind the leader, it’s impossible not to applaud the effort.

Besides, she has 30,300 followers on Instagram.

Big air standings

Two runs down, one to go. Top two runs count.

187.75 Birk Ruud (NOR)
176.00 Henrik Harlaut (SWE)
172.00 Leonardo Donaggio (ITA)
166.50 Oliwer Magnusson (SWE)
160.75 Alex Hall (USA)

It’s still wide-open, at least for silver and bronze. Any of the top 10 have a mathematical chance at the podium.

Catching Rudd? Good luck with that.

Alex Hall has just landed a big air trick that most mortals cannot, especially given the fact that they are, indeed, mortals. He skis down the ramp without poles, which lets him grab one ski with both hands like a pole dancer. (In keeping with the American slump, my metaphors are getting worse.)

Hall lands perfectly and smiles as he gets a 92.50.

Let’s revisit Jessie Diggins’ bronze …

Maybe it’s because I live in an English-speaking country that isn’t Canada, or maybe it’s an idiosyncrasy of the schedule that has little action going on at the moment, but it just feels like everything has deflated this evening.

Norway’s Christian Nummedal might disagree, having just attempted the same jump he tried in the first run but doing it much, much better. He gets a 93.00. He’ll need another good one, of course, to contend.

And finally, for the first time since Chloe Kim’s first run (which, by her standards, was rather pedestrian), an American favorite does something special. Colby Stevenson gets a 91.75 on his second effort in big air.

How do people land backwards? Intentionally? That boggles my mind.

Canada’s Evan McEachran just flew too close to the sun, going for an 1800 (five rotations) with a double grab. Can’t stick the landing. But his 93.00 in the first run will leave him in contention if he cleanly lands on his third attempt.

The first run of men’s big air is complete, and it’s … Scandinavian. The last skier to go was Norway’s Birk Ruud, who takes the lead with a 95.75. Second is Canadian Evan McEachran, then Italy’s Leonardo Donaggio, then three Swedish skiers.

At seventh, Alex Hall is the highest placed of the three Americans.

Three runs, top two count.

At this hour …

The women’s halfpipe qualifiers include three Chinese riders (Cai Xuetong, Liu Jiayu, Qiu Leng), three Japanese riders (Mitsuki Ono, Sena Tomita, Ruki Tomita) and two Canadians (Elizabeth Hosking, Brooke Dhondt). The rest are from Spain (the ageless Queralt Castellet), Switzerland (Berenice Wicki), Germany (Leilani Ettel) and the USA (Chloe Kim).

In women’s slalom, the Vlhova-Shiffrin showdown has melted away. Shiffrin is out, and Vlhova is eighth. American Paula Moltzan is a surprising sixth. Germany’s Lena Duerr, the first skier on the course, still leads. Next up: Michelle Gisin (SUI) and Sara Hector (SWE).

The snowboardcross seeding run is underway, but with more than an hour to go until men’s halfpipe qualifiers and 2 1/2 hours until the second run in the slalom, the event to watch is the men’s freestyle skiing big air. So let’s go to the Power Station, a name I fully intend to popularize, and watch ..

Continuing with halfpipe qualification …

Tessa Maud (USA) is out, falling on the first hit of her run.

Emily Arthur (AUS) is out, losing control in the air.

Canada’s Elizabeth Hosking is in, which bumps out Maddie Mastro (USA).

Zoe Kalapos (USA) is out.

At this point, you couldn’t blame NBC if they just cut to reruns of Jessie Diggins and Ryan Cochran-Siegle.

Changes in the standings in the second run in women’s halfpipe with a few athletes yet to go …

Liu Jiayu recovered from her first-run fall to post a 72.25. She has qualified for the final.

Maddie Mastro is hanging on to 12th with five riders left, including Emily Arthur, Tessa Maud and Zoe Kalapos.

Could Chloe Kim end up as the only American in the halfpipe final?

Twitter is really, really angry with NBC right now for its Shiffrin coverage, particularly given the focus on mental health that came with Simone Biles’ story last summer.

Let’s hop back to the halfpipe …

How unlikely was Shiffrin’s back-to-back flameout?

Slalom is inherently an event of risk and reward. But the risk rarely catches up with Shiffrin.

To wit …

That’s the cruelty of the Olympics. Shiffrin is on pace to win her fourth overall World Cup championship. She has six world championships. She may break the World Cup wins record by the time her career is done.

But in the Games, it’s one slip, and you’re out.

As if to illustrate the point, Chloe Kim crashed in her second halfpipe run. It won’t affect her qualifying prospects, but it’s a reminder that mistakes can happen to anyone, any time. Snowboarders, at least, get more than one chance.

It’s worse when your sport doesn’t get any attention outside the Olympics. Consider Lindsey Jacobellis. She’s a five-time world champion in snowboardcross. She won the X Games 10 times, and then they cut her event. But to casual observers, she’s the person who was about to win gold in 2006 but did a hot-dogging grab on the last jump, leaving her to scramble for silver.

She’s still competing and will go later today/tonight.

Didn’t even make four gates. Her Olympics good hardly be going any worse.

Quickly back to halfpipe to run through the first run results. Again — best of two runs counts, top 12 make the final …

1. Chloe Kim (USA) 87.75
2. Cai Xuetong (CHN) 83.25
3. Mitsuki Ono (JPN) 79.50
4. Queralt Castellet (ESP) 78.75
—
8. Brooke Dhondt (CAN) 69.25
10. Maddie Mastro (USA) 65.75
12. Emily Arthur (AUS) 62.50

Americans Tessa Maud and Zoe Kalapos will need to improve to make it through.

Here goes Vlhova, and though she seems aggressive, she’s far off the pace of the first skier down the hill, Germany’s Lena Duerr.

That’s a shocker. It’s one thing for an elite skier to miss a gate in the complicated calculus of risk and reward. It’s another to just be slower.

Back to the halfpipe briefly to catch up with Australia’s Emily Arthur, who has a solid but unspectacular run to land right on the bubble in 12th place. That’s two ahead of the USA’s Tessa Maud.

The last American, Zoe Kalapos, gets virtually no height on her first few hits and then badly bungles an effort to go big.

FIVE MINUTES UNTIL THE SLALOM and the showdown between Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhova. We won’t have to wait long — Vlhova is up second, Shiffrin seventh. One interesting note from the international broadcasters — each of their coaches set part of the course today.

The second run is at 12:45 am ET, so get your caffeine now.

But I just have this feeling that we’re going to see some mistakes and upsets.

This is one of those events that goes for inclusion, so we’ll have 88 skiers.

Jenise Spiteri is the only athlete from Malta in these Olympics. She is, as you might expect, originally American, having grown up as an actor and model in California. Another fun item from her bio — she lives in a van she and her dad converted into a tiny home.

She also puts a lot of effort into YouTube videos.

Her first run was a 7.25, which we’ll assume means she crashed. We assume because it happened during a commercial break or a feature of some kind.

Ten riders have gone. For those of you whose national language is the one in which you’re reading this, the athletes of interest in the start order are:

17. Brooke Dhondt (CAN)
18. Tessa Maud (USA)
19. Emily Arthur (AUS)
20. Elizabeth Hosking (CAN)
21. Zoe Kalapos (USA)

Another of the American contingent, Maddie Mastro, has two world championship medals and is the first woman to land a double crippler 900 in competition, which involves being head-down at some point. But this is a lackluster run full of far simpler tricks than Kim and Castellet, and she also puts a hand down on a landing.

It’s a mixed bag for the Chinese contingent so far. Cai Xuetong stands second behind Kim, but Wu Shaotong joined Liu in crashing hard. Fortunately, neither athlete appears injured.

Chloe Kim opens by making a 12-foot-11 parabola out of the halfpipe and a 900 look like riding a tricycle. That’s an 87.75, which will probably get her through to the final already. Smile, wave, have a nice day.

(That said, Spain’s Queralt Castellet opens her fifth Olympics with some dazzling spins, including a 900 and an upward flight of more than 20 feet. Somehow, that’s only 78.75.)

And away we go …

Halfpipe qualification in a nutshell: Two runs, best one counts, top 12 go to final.

We start with a crash by China’s Liu Jiayu, the 2018 silver medalist.

Next up, the gold medalist from four years ago, the USA’s Chloe Kim …

And … my feed just froze.

At this hour …

There’s nothing going on. It’s the break between mixed doubles and unmixed quadruples curling, so the schedulers in Beijing have nothing to offer at 9 am their time.

But in 30 minutes, we’ll have the women’s halfpipe (snowboard, not ski) qualification rounds. In another 45 minutes, we’ll have the first run of the women’s slalom (ski, not snowboard). Then we’re back to Big Air Shougang, the post-industrial big air venue we should really start calling the Power Station.

OK, let’s take a calming breath.

Phew. Feel better?

The purpose of that mini-meditation is to cleanse your thoughts of the 300 thinkpieces you’ve read today about Eileen Gu, a majestic freestyle skiing star who may win multiple golds in Beijing and is somehow simultaneously, according to the punditocracy, both a brilliant and savvy young woman who has parlayed her multicultural heritage into a dual-country financial and athletic empire AND an unwitting, naive tool of the Chinese government, the IOC and the judges who ranked her ahead of the unfortunate Tess Ledeux.

Granted, the latter is my fault. And Sean Ingle has written well about Gu’s adeptness at the first of the portrayals I’ve listed here.

But let’s take a moment to consider two underreported stories from yesterday …

First, Jessie Diggins is a badass. She and Kikkan Randall won gold in the 2018 Olympic team sprint while NBC’s Chad Salmela memorably yelled “HERE COMES DIGGINS! HERE COMES DIGGINS!” Yesterday, she became the first US woman to win a cross-country individual medal.

And most of all, let’s all marvel at how Nathan Chen set a world record in the figure skating short program while being harassed by a cat.

Coming up today

Times are all in local Beijing time. For Melbourne it is +3 hours, for London it is -8 hours, for New York it is -13 hours and Los Angeles is -16 hours.

• 9.30am – 3.45pm Snowboard – there is a lot of action on Wednesday, including women’s and men’s halfpipe qualification. The women’s cross final is the session finale 🥇
• 10.15am and 1.45pm – the women’s slalom is contested over two runs 🥇
• 11am Freestyle skiing – it is the freeski big air day for men 🥇
• 3pm, 4pm and 7pm Nordic combined – this should be great, as the ski jumping trial round and competition round are followed in the early evening with the 10km cross-country 🥇
• 4.40pm and 9.10pm Ice hockey – the men’s competition begins with two group B match-ups: ROC v Switzerland followed by Czech Republic v Denmark 🏒
• 7pm – 9.20pm Short track speed skating – for women there are 1,000m heats and the 3,000m semi-finals, for men the 1500m goes from quarter-finals all the way to the final 🥇
• 8.05pm Curling – the round-robin stage gets under way in the men’s competition 🥌
• 8.20pm Luge – two runs at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre will decide the doubles medals 🥇

Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table