LIVIGNO, Italy — Park City aerialists Chris Lillis, Kaila Kuhn and Connor Curran won the Olympic mixed team aerials gold medal Saturday at the Livigno Aerials & Moguls Park.
Lillis, Kuhn and Curran landed all six of their jumps from final one and two. In final two, Lillis landed a back double full-full-full, Kuhn a back full-full-full and Curran a back full-double full-full for scores of 117.19, 113.72 and 94.44, respectively.
Lillis, Kuhn and Curran’s team score of 325.25 edged out Switzerland in second place and China in third place, who had scores of 296.91 and 279.68, respectively.
The mixed team aerials gold medal is the second straight for the United States, which won the inaugural event in Beijing in 2022 with Lillis and Parkites Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld.
Saturday’s win was considered a massive upset in the sport, as China’s team had men’s gold medalist Wang Xindi, women’s gold medalist Xu Mengtao and men’s bronze medalist Li Tianma. Lillis, Kuhn and Curran had also struggled in their individual competitions, finishing in eighth, fifth and 12th place, respectively.
“We’ve had quite a lot of success with it,” Lillis said about mixed team aerials. “I’ve thought about it quite a bit. … I think the fact that a lot of U.S. athletes come from team sports and use each other as motivation really helps us.”
Lillis, Kuhn and Curran’s win set the record for the most U.S. gold medals in a Winter Olympics at 11, surpassing the 10 won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
“I think I did a press conference two weeks ago and told you guys we were going to win,” Lillis joked. “I don’t know why they took today to count.”
