Su Yiming of China closed out the snowboarding competition in Beijing on Tuesday by winning men’s big air, taking a victory lap in the air after already securing the top spot on the podium before his final run. He earned China its first medal in the event, which was added to the Olympic program in 2018.

Mons Roisland of Norway took home the silver, and Max Parrot of Canada finished with bronze.

It was a display of some of the most technical tricks in snowboarding at Shougang Park, complete with flips, twists and turns performed at gravity-defying heights. Yiming, a 17-year-old student who made his Olympic debut in Beijing, was a favorite coming into the event. Yiming will leave the Games with a silver medal in slopestyle in addition to his big air gold.

In women’s big air on Tuesday, Anna Gasser of Austria won gold, ahead of Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand in second place, and Kokomo Murase of Japan in third.

In 2019, Gasser made history by becoming the first woman to land a cab double cork 1260 — three and a half rotations on her snowboard, with two of them overhead. She made history with the same trick again on Tuesday by becoming the first back-to-back Olympic gold medalist in women’s big air.

Gasser, who at 30 years old was the oldest rider in a field where the average age was 20, set the tone early in the final, perfectly executing a frontside 1080 in her first run. But Sadowski-Synnott quickly overtook Gasser with a frontside 1080 of her own, moving into the top spot, where she stayed until Gasser’s last run.

Gasser is considered one of the sport’s most daring riders and is the only woman to have landed a triple cork — three flips done on a rotation. So when she strapped in for her final run — her only chance to bump Sadowski-Synnott — the snowboarding world waited on an expected triple cork. Instead, Gasser landed her third run with a cab 1260 and proudly threw her hands in the air as other riders ran over and embraced her.

With one more chance to retake first place, Sadowski-Synnott, a confident and consistent rider, failed to land her jump, delivering the gold to Gasser.

Last week, Sadowski-Synnott became the first athlete from New Zealand to earn a gold medal at a Winter Olympics when she won the slopestyle competition. Slopestyle is a bit of an older sibling to big air, featuring a long run of obstacles, rails and jumps; big air is one giant jump with spins and flips.

The riders each had three jumps, and their two best scores, as judged by a panel, were added to determine the winner.

It was a young and talented women’s group competing in Beijing, though some of the more promising contenders failed to reach the podium. Tess Coady of Australia, the slopestyle bronze medalist, came in eighth place after two disappointing runs.

There were some missing faces from the women’s final, too, including Jamie Anderson of the United States, the most decorated female snowboarder of the past decade, whose disappointing Winter Games ended without her reaching the last round. Her American teammate Julia Marino, who won a silver medal in slopestyle, opted out of big air because of an injury sustained in training. Hailey Langland, the sole American in the final, finished last.

In a sport that is about progression, a standout moment came after Reira Iwabuchi of Japan, who finished fourth in 2018 and was a strong medal contender this year, went for a triple cork, beating Gasser to the moment.Iwabuchi failed to land the jump, but the other riders celebrated her anyway.