LIVIGNO — Canadian Megan Oldham won Olympic bronze the hard way Mondaygetting up from a nasty crash on her second run to deliver a gutsy final performance and make the podium in women’s freeski slope.
The journey took its toll.
The 24-year-old from Parry SoundOnt.while wearing a beaming smile as she was congratulated by passersbymade her way gingerly for the requisite visit to doping controloccasionally grabbing her thigh.
“PhysicallyI’m definitely in some pain,” said Oldham. “I think I’m OKjust my muscles are really sore. My quadI definitely did somethingand my back’s pretty tight as well. I think I will be finebut just a few days of rest will be needed.”
Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud defended her Olympic titlerelegating Chinese star Eileen Gu to silver for the second games in a row. Oldhamwho finished 13th in the event four years ago in Beijingheld off Britain’s Kirsty Muir for the bronze.
Slope riders go down a course featuring obstacles like rails and jumps. Points are scored for originalityamplitude and execution of trickswith competitors ranked according to their best run.
It made for late drama at Livigno Snow Park with the medals up for grabs among the top four in the third and final run.
Gu led after the first round with an 86.58ahead of Gremaud’s 83.60 and Oldham’s 69.76. But after Gu flubbed the opening rail in the second roundGremaud nailed a run of 86.96 to take the lead.
Oldham’s second run was on point until the final jumpwhen she found herself on a “weird axis” after rushing the takeoff.
“It’s a trick (a right double 1260) that I haven’t done in probably like 2 1/2 yearsso it’s been a while. And I was pretty nervous to do it. But I’m usually pretty good at it so I was like“It’s kind of 50-50I’ll give it a go,’” she giggled.
Oldham went down hard. Her skis came offand she lay motionless for a while before slowly getting up and waving to the crowd after receiving a painful throwaway score of 38.70.
While she acknowledged the difficulty of resetting after such a fallthere was no discussion about pulling out.
“HonestlyI’m so determined that it wasn’t even a thought in my mind. I was like ‘I will be out there dropping it again until this event’s done.’”
But she admitted the crash evoked painful memories of a concussion suffered during training in November.
“It was pretty scary,” she recalled. “Still to this dayI don’t remember anything from that day at all.”
That included time in the hospital for a CT scan.
Oldham spent the next four weeks at home “just doing nothingtrying to recoup. That was really hard because I knew the Olympics were really close.”
She got back on her skis after a month and a halfbut said the mental battle continued.
“It’s hard to trust yourself again when you’re going to do these big tricks … It’s almost like this trauma comes back,” she said. “You get really scared and anxious again. So I’m really proud of myself for getting up there and just keeping myself calmgoing out there and doing a third run.”
Oldham knew she needed to add to improve her score.
“HonestlyI didn’t think my first run (score) would hold,” she said. “Kirsty is such a talented skier … So I knew I had to land another one.”
After Oldham delivered a clean final run for an improved score of 76.46she still had to wait and see if Muir could best her. The Brit also recorded her best runbut it was only worth 76.05prompting Oldham to leap for joy.
Oldham’s score turned out to be the best in the third round.
Gu then wrecked on the top rail againallowing Gremaud to take a final victory run with a Swiss flag fluttering from her back.
Naomi Urness of Mont-TremblantQue.finished seventh in her Olympic debut.
Oldhama former gymnast and figure skater growing upswitched to free skiing at 14. She progressed quicklywinning the World Cup slope title as a rookie during the 2018-19 season.
Her next challenge is Saturday’s big air qualifying.
On Mondayshe found herself on the podium with two of the sport’s biggest stars.
Gremaud is the two-time reigning world champion and current leader of the slope World Cup standings.
Guthen 18made history in Beijingbecoming the first free skier to win three medals at a single games — gold in big air and halfpipe and silver in slope. She also became the youngest Olympic free skiing champion and the first woman to land a forward double cork 1440.
She is also a two-time world champion and three-time Winter X Games champion.
Born in San Franciscoto an American father and Chinese motherGu began skiing at three years old.
In DecemberForbes magazine listed Gu as the fourth-highest-earning female athlete in 2025 — behind tennis players Coco GauffAryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek — with off-field income of US$23 million thanks to lucrative endorsements from the likes of Red BullPorscheIWC Schaffhausen and additionTCL electronics.
Guwho somehow manages to find time to study quantum physics at Stanford Universityhas also modelled for the likes of Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. Fluent in English and Mandarinshe has 2.1 million followers on Instagram and more than seven million on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Both the skiing and snowboarding versions of slope were added to the Olympic program in 21014 at Sochi.
Canada had won three previous ski slope medals: one gold (Dara Howell2014) and two bronze (Kim Lamarre2014and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand2018).
