Canada’s Megan Oldham survives hard crash to win Olympic bronze in freeski slopestyle

Canadian Megan Oldham won Olympic bronze the hard way Monday, getting up from a nasty crash on her second run to deliver a gutsy final performance and make the podium in women’s freeski slopestyle.

The journey took its toll.

The 24-year-old from Parry Sound, Ont., while wearing a beaming smile as she was congratulated by passersby, made her way gingerly for the requisite visit to doping control, occasionally grabbing her thigh.

“Physically, I’m definitely in some pain,” said Oldham. “I think I’m OK, just my muscles are really sore. My quad, I definitely did something, and my back’s pretty tight as well. I think I will be fine, but just a few days of rest will be needed.” 

Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud defended her Olympic title, relegating Chinese star Eileen Gu to silver for the second games in a row. Oldham, who finished 13th in the event four years ago in Beijing, held off Britain’s Kirsty Muir for the bronze.

Slopestyle riders go down a course featuring obstacles like rails and jumps. Points are scored for originality, amplitude and execution of tricks, with 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 86.58, ahead of Gremaud’s 83.60 and Oldham’s 69.76. But after Gu flubbed the opening rail in the second round, Gremaud nailed a run of 86.96 to take the lead.

Oldham’s second run was on point until the final jump, when 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 years, so 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 50-50, I’ll give it a go,’” she giggled.

Oldham went down hard. Her skis came off, and 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 fall, there was no discussion about pulling out.

“Honestly, I’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 day, I 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 nothing, trying 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 half, but 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 calm, going out there and doing a third run.”

Oldham knew she needed to add to improve her score.

“Honestly, I 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 76.46, she still had to wait and see if Muir could best her. The Brit also recorded her best run, but it was only worth 76.05, prompting 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 again, allowing Gremaud to take a final victory run with a Swiss flag fluttering from her back.

Naomi Urness of Mont-Tremblant, Que., finished seventh in her Olympic debut.

Oldham, a former gymnast and figure skater growing up, switched to freestyle skiing at 14. She progressed quickly, winning the World Cup slopestyle title as a rookie during the 2018-19 season.

Her next challenge is Saturday’s big air qualifying. 

On Monday, she 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 slopestyle World Cup standings. 

Gu, then 18, made history in Beijing, becoming the first freestyle skier to win three medals at a single games — gold in big air and halfpipe and silver in slopestyle. She also became the youngest Olympic freestyle 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 Francisco, to an American father and Chinese mother, Gu began skiing at three years old.

In December, Forbes magazine listed Gu as the fourth-highest-earning female athlete in 2025 — behind tennis players Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek — with off-field income of US$23 million thanks to lucrative endorsements from the likes of Red Bull, Porsche, IWC Schaffhausen and addition, TCL electronics.

Gu, who somehow manages to find time to study quantum physics at Stanford University, has also modelled for the likes of Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. Fluent in English and Mandarin, she 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 slopestyle were added to the Olympic program in 21014 at Sochi.

Canada had won three previous ski slopestyle medals: one gold (Dara Howell, 2014) and two bronze (Kim Lamarre, 2014, and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, 2018).

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2026.

By Neil Davidson