Ben Barclay (Auckland, 20) has qualified through to tomorrow’s heavy freeski slopestyle finals in seventh place, lacing together two fantastic runs in the qualifications today.
“It feels amazing, I can’t really believe it. It’s something I was aiming for but not necessarily something I thought would happen, so I am just really stoked.”
This feat is made even more impressive by the incredibly high quality of the field here in Beijing.
Heading into the finals Barclay alluded to having a little more in the tank that we didn’t see today and plans to up the technicality of his run in a couple of areas.
The results today were bittersweet though, with team-mate Finn Bilous (22) missing out on finals.
The Wānaka athlete gave it everything he had today, but a couple of bobbles on run one and coming unstuck on run two resulted in a 15th place finish for the two-time Olympian.
Tune in tomorrow on Sky Sport at 2.30pm NZT to watch Barclay take on the world’s best in the finals.