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Kim dominates for 1st Olympic gold, Hirscher breaks through
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PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — It was a day for all ages at the Winter Olympics.A few hours after 17-year-old Chloe Kim dominated the women’s halfpipe snowboarding final on Tuesday, 28-year-old Marcel Hirscher, a six-time overall World Cup champion, won the men’s combined at the Pyeongchang Games.Four years after being too young to make the Olympic team in Sochi despite having the talent and scores to do so, Kim performed like a seasoned veteran in South Korea.Kim put up a score of 93.75 on the first of her three finals runs and then topped that with a near-perfect 98.75 on her last run — having already wrapped up her first Olympic gold.“I knew that I did put down a really good first run,” Kim said, “but I was also like, ‘I can do better than that. I can one up myself.’”Kim’s parents both migrated to the United States from South Korea, where their daughter made her Olympic debut in a cause for celebration in both countries.Liu Jiayu finished second with 89.75 to become the first Chinese snowboarder to medal at the Olympics. Kim’s teammate, Arielle Gold, overcame a dislocated shoulder during training to earn a bronze.In a first for the Olympics, Canadian curlers Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris won gold in the debut of mixed doubles with a 10-3 victory over the Swiss pair of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios.In a rush of night-time finishes, Kjeld Nuis led a Dutch double in the men’s 1,500-meter speedskating final, Natalie Geisenberger successfully defended her women’s luge title in a 1-2 finish for Germany, the cross-country classic sprint titles went to Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway and Stina Nilsson of Sweden, and Italian short-track speedskater Arianna Fontana won the women’s 500 meters.In Jeongseon, Hirscher’s combined two-run time was 0.23 seconds faster than silver medalist Alexis Pinturault of France.