Winter Olympics: Britain's Zoe Atkin crashes twice in freestyle halfpipe as Eileen Gu wins again

Eileen Gu sealed her second gold medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics as Zoe Atkin's hopes of a winning a first medal of the Games for Great Britain crashed and burned in the women's freestyle halfpipe in Zhangjiakou.

Atkin had delivered the fourth highest score in Thursday's qualification round, raising hopes that she might emulate her older sister Izzy, who won a bronze medal in women's slopestyle in Pyeongchang in 2018.

But Atkin crashed in her first two runs, losing a ski in both cases, then aborted a lacklustre final attempt that scored 73.25 to finish ninth of the 12 finalists.

Zoe Atkin had to settle for ninth in the freestyle halfpipe final after crashing out twice

The British medal hope twice lost her ski as two of her three runs in the final ended in disaster

Atkin falls on the halfpipe as her hopes of winning a medal for Great Britain faded on Friday

'I was really glad to make it to the finals on my Olympic debut,' said Atkin.

'I definitely wanted to land a good, clean run that was a bit bigger with some harder tricks but unfortunately I didn't have the speed.'

Gu, the US-born 18-year-old who competes for China, added to her Big Air gold and slopestyle silver with a second run score of 95.25, which proved enough to shunt Canadian duo Cassie Sharpe and Rachael Karker into second and third places respectively.

China's Eileen Gu celebrates her second gold medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics on Friday

The teenage sensation previously won gold in the women's big air and silver in the slopestyle 

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'It has changed my life for ever,' said Gu. 'It has been two straight weeks of the most intense highs and lows I've ever experienced in my life.

'I'm so honoured to be here, and I'm even more honoured by this platform that I've been given to be able to spread this message and inspire young girls through my own passion for the sport and to be able hopefully to spread the sport to people that might not have heard of it before.'