The first person to greet Katie Summerhayes when she landed her second run in the freeski slopestyle qualification was teammate Kirsty Muir. “It’s so cold”, said the 26-year-old, who is at her third Olympic Winter Games, as she skied into the finish area and into the embrace of her compatriot who had just completed her own run.
By competition’s end, both had qualified for the final, taking place on Tuesday 15 February at the Genting Snow Park, a debut final appearance in this discipline for Muir and a third for Summerhayes.
Muir, 17, qualified in sixth with a best score of 70.11, with Summerhayes coming in 10th with a top mark of 66.56. They take their positions in the top-12 final, with the scores starting from scratch so it’s all to play for.
The much-anticipated rivalry between Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru, who qualified top (86.15), and People’s Republic of China’s Ailing (Eileen) Gu (79.38) already a gold medallist at Beijing 2022, in big air, is all set to play out and it’s proving a mouth-watering prospect.
Muir, the youngest competitor for Team GB at Beijing 2022, who has already claimed a fifth place at the inaugural big air event on Tuesday (8 February), said after qualifying: “I’m really happy to have made it through. I need to clean some things up but I’m really happy.”
On the first run – and the score that took her through to the final – she said, “I did have a few mistakes, so I was hoping to clean up the second run. I didn’t manage to but going into tomorrow I’m looking forward to it, I just want to clean it up”.
Summerhayes commented on her qualification: “I’m pretty happy. Obviously, I just squeaked through, it’s pretty nice no matter what place you qualify, just so long as tomorrow goes well. I’m pretty stoked to get another chance.”
Talking about her highest scoring run, again the first one she dropped, Summerhayes said: “That run was pretty bad. I landed sideways on a jump so that’s not good and there were a couple of mistakes in both of the runs.
“It’s quite nice going forward to tomorrow knowing that I can clean both runs up. I’m pretty pumped, it has given me a little bit of confidence as well.”
Waiting it out
The more experienced Summerhayes, who came seventh in both Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018, also talked about how she managed the 24-hour delay due to the weather conditions, with heavy swirling snow in the Zhangjiakou mountains: “It feels pretty weird because yesterday we prepped for the comp, and we were almost ready to go and they cancelled it. Although it seems like we did nothing, it was a really intense day so we had an extra day of it really.”
Muir was happy the conditions had improved for the qualifying run: “Yesterday’s conditions were really tough, so I’m glad today was better and glad to have got through it.”
The uncertainty of how they will perform in the final is part and parcel of the sport and why they love it. Yet, whatever happens, they know they are in it together.
“I’m pretty stoked,” said Summerhayes about making the final. “Obviously with Kirsty as well it’s great. Stoked to be here and represent Team GB again.”
“I’m really excited,” said Muir. “I just want to go and get a clean run. See if I can up my run and go and have some fun. I’m stoked to have Katie in the final with me.”