Ayana Onozuka failed to make it back on the Olympic podium as the Sochi 2014 bronze medalist was overwhelmed and left in tears in the Pyeongchang women's ski halfpipe final, ending up a distant fifth Tuesday.

"I have to face up to this," Onozuka said. "The top three just dominated."

"I couldn't win a medal but I gave it everything I had. It's tough for me that I didn't medal, but it would have been worse if I knew I didn't leave it all out there."

Onozuka's 82.20 points from her third run were simply not good enough for a medal on this morning, when Cassie Sharpe of Canada struck gold with 95.80. France's Marie Martinod, the Sochi silver medalist, came in second again (92.60), while Brita Sigourney of the United States placed third (91.60).

Maddie Bowman, who won the inaugural halfpipe event four years ago, fell on all three runs to finish last (27.00) in a field reduced to 11 after Anais Caradeux of France became a last-minute scratch.

Onozuka fell during the first run. She improved to 77.20 the second time out, but her final score did not come close to challenging the eventual medalists.

"The first run, I wasn't expecting that at all," she said. "I thought I could turn it around in the next run, but then I landed on the lip. If you look at the top three there is a gap, but I improved and was much better in the third so I'm happy about that."

The 29-year-old from Niigata Prefecture said she flashed back to a concussion she suffered in December at the World Cup that sidelined her a month, a rare admission by the usually bold skier.

Since Sochi, Onozuka had placed herself under enormous pressure, feeling compelled to win back-to-back medals in Pyeongchang to gain recognition for herself and her sport.

Onozuka won her bronze medal at the last games the same day as the figure skating women's free program, when Mao Asada produced a memorable performance that turned out to be her last on the Olympic stage.

After returning to Niigata from Sochi, Onozuka saw that on the day of her triumph, the local paper had attributed far more space to Asada than her, even though Asada did not medal. That was the moment when Onozuka's mission began.

So to not medal on Tuesday meant epic failure for Onozuka, who was already doing some soul searching.

"This has been priority for me so I don't know where I go from here," she said. "I had fun at the last Olympics, but this time, all I was thinking about was a medal and to be honest, it wasn't much fun."

"It was never pressure from others. It was a constant battle inside of me."