Ben Lynch becomes first Irish skier to qualify for any Winter Olympics final
Eva Osborne
Ireland skier Ben Lynch is in the final of the Men’s Freestyle Skiing Halfpipe.
It means that Lynch has become the first Irish skier to qualify for any final at the Winter Olympics.
The Dublin-born athlete will be back in action for the final on Friday evening.
He finished 11th in the qualifiers with a top score and personal best of 75.75. The top 12 qualifiers from today’s qualifying two rounds progress to the Olympic Final later on Friday night.
Speaking after the race, Lynch said: “I'm feeling unbelievable. I'm so excited. Really, really grateful to be here and to make the finals is a cherry on top for me. I’m officially an Olympian and officially a finalist as well, which is just mind-blowing."
In his first run, Lynch finished clean with a score of 57.00, giving him confidence ahead of his second shot. Athletes got two opportunities to land a score, with the best score from either run counting towards their overall standing.
In his second run, Lynch landed a right double cork 12, a trick that he had not previously done in his training runs.
“So I did my first run, just like the singles run that I'd planned to do. Landed it perfectly, and I went for the right 12 in my second run.
"I hadn't done it in training yet, so it was the first time for me today. I haven't done that trick since three, four months ago. So to land that in my run was unbelievable and I'm really, really excited to be in finals right now.
“During the run I was thinking about landing my first tricks, not thinking too far ahead to the right 12 because it's very easy to get distracted.
"So yeah, I visualised it beforehand and then I did my first two tricks, and then it was on, and I did it perfectly. Landed so well, and I'm really, really excited."
Friday's qualification was originally scheduled for Thursday morning, but due to heavy snowfall it was postponed to Friday.
“The pipe was a little bit slow today because we had fresh snow, so it was really about who has got the best wax job, tune job, and then also who can maintain their speed," Lynch said.
"So it was really a game of being clean. I think that definitely played into my advantage because a lot of the bigger guys couldn't do their best tricks. So yeah, I'm really, really grateful to be in the finals tonight and hopefully I'll be able to land it again.”
This evening’s finals in Livigno take place at 6:30pm Irish time.
