Whitefish's Voisin lands 5th in Olympic slopestyle

Whitefish's hometown freeskiing marvel Maggie Voisin impressed in her final event at the Beijing Winter Games, just missing out on some Olympic hardware.

Voisin finished fifth in the women's slopestyle finals on Monday, lingering in medal contention throughout much of the competition at Genting Snow Park on a bitterly cold and hazy day when temperatures hovered around minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The 23-year-old dialed up a 74.28 in her second run, a high mark that was good enough to hold third place after two rounds.

Bumped to fourth just prior to her final run, Voisin needed a big score to get back on the podium. She cleared the upper rail section cleanly, then went for it on the jumps — throwing a big right-side 900, switch left 900 and finishing with a double cork 1260. The judges, however, snipped away points for missed grabs in the aerials, and Voisin couldn't improve her score.

Switzerland's Mathilde Gremaud took gold with an 86.56 on her second run, edging out American-born Eileen Gu's silver medal 86.23. Gu is competing for her mother’s home country of China. She won the gold medal in big air last week.

Estonia's Kelly Sildaru earned bronze with an 82.06. Russia's Anastasia Tatalina took fourth with a 75.51.

These games aren't the first time Voisin has been in the mix for an Olympic medal. She narrowly missed the podium at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, taking fourth in slopestyle. She made the U.S. team in 2014, but an injury kept her out of the competition at Sochi, Russia.

Voisin also competed in the women's ski big air competition earlier in the Beijing Games but failed to move out of the qualifying round.

U.S. teammate Marin Hamill made the field for the slopestyle final but didn’t start after hurting her leg in a crash during the qualifying round. Missoula’s Darian Stevens missed the cut in qualifiers.