Ben Lynch: Irish skier claims eighth in halfpipe final

Ireland’s Ben Lynch finished eighth in the final of the men’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final at the Winter Olympics.

On his Olympic debut, the 23-year-old Dublin native made history earlier in the day by becoming the first Irish skier to reach a final with 11th place in the opening session thanks to a second run score of 75.75.

Lynch attacked the first two of his three runs, but was ninth out of the 11 going into the final run as stumbles on each saw him pick up scores of 39.75 and 44.25.

Knowing he could ill-afford another slip, his final run was less aggressive as he remained upright throughout for a 75.00 which initially saw him into seventh, but dropped down a place following Brendan Mackay’s run which saw the Canadian take bronze.

“It feels really cool, especially because eight is my lucky number. My birthday is September 8, I got eight stitches above my eyebrow here, so eight has always been my lucky number, and the fact that I just got eighth, like, the stars aligned,” Lynch said.

“It definitely still feels surreal, but it’s sinking in a little bit. It’s pretty cool, because my last best result was 16th, so I halved that the Olympics, and couldn’t be more happy to be here.

“I just tried really hard to focus on the run, not worry about the result, and I ended up landing it pretty much as good as I possibly could have

“I think before this, I’d only gotten around the 60s in World Cups. It’s hard to get high scores in World Cup levels. It’s the best score I’ve ever gotten and I also got that in qualifiers so I’m just so stoked.”

Gold went to Alex Ferreira of the United States ‌who produced an incredible 93.75 in his final run with Estonia’s Henry Sildaru ⁠taking silver ahead of Mackay ‘s third-place finish.

Team GB’s Gus Kenworthy finished in sixth place thanks to his second run 84.75.