France's Perrine Laffont beat out the reigning Olympic women's moguls champion on Sunday to win her country's first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Games.

Laffont, the 19-year-old world silver medalist, scored 78.65 points as she used her superior turn scores to overcome only skiing the second-fastest run and scoring the third-highest jumps score of the finalists, her loose form on her second jump -- a tucked back flip -- almost costing her.

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With 78.56 points, silver medalist Justine Dufour-Lapointe from Canada missed the chance to defend her crown and continued the curse of reigning Olympic women's mogul champs. She became the fifth straight Olympic champion to win a minor medal when attempting to defend her title.

Yulia Galysheva won Kazakhstan's first medal of the Pyeongchang Games and her country's first in freestyle skiing, finishing third with 77.40 points.

Japan's one entrant, Arisa Murata, was unable to ski her way into the medal round, scoring 70.77 points to finish 18th of the 20 competitors in the final standings.

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