For the first time in a winter Olympics, a freeskiing Big Air event kicked off this morning. Competitors were looking to stomp their biggest, most technical, tricks amongst the cooling towers of the former Shougang steel mill of Beijing in the hopes of making a spot in the finals.
Her first games at the age of 17, the young Scot Kirsty Muir threw down a huge double 1260 air on her first judged run of the competition to score a 89.25 – the second-highest scoring first run. This was then followed up by two consistent 67.00 and 68.25 runs that landed her in seventh.
Another big talking point was American-born Chinese competitor Eileen Gu, who had the expectations of a home audience, and a crash on her second jump, adding pressure to an already tense qualification. Gu managed to pull a 1260 out of the bag, netting her a final score of 161.26 and a 5th spot.
Canada’s Megan Oldham topped the qualification position, with Tess Ledeux in second with the rest looking to be taking things easy, only pulling out enough to get through to the finals. On the men’s side, Birk Ruud took the top spot while firm favourite, Alex Hall, snagged a 2nd place finisher.
There was upset for the two other British Big Air hopefuls, with Katy Summerhayes getting knocked out on her last jump, and Woodsy failing to land his first two runs cleanly enough to score well. Katy and Woodsy will now be looking to Wednesday’s Slopestyle qualifications.
Header Image: BBC Sport