New Zealand teenager Ben Barclay has finished second at the latest Freeski Slopestyle World Cup in France.
Photo: Snow Sports NZ
It is a career best result and the 19-year-old's first World Cup podium.
He went head-to-head with some of the top freeski slopestyle athletes in the world and held his own, laying down a great first run which had him sitting in fourth position. He then dropped into run two knowing he would need to step up his run to have a shot at the podium.
"Right now it doesn't seem too real, the goal was far exceeded today. Our plan was to have a safe run to help secure Olympic selection, but everything just fell into line and I couldn't be happier," Barclay said after securing second place.
"I didn't have too much stress going into the second run as I was sitting in a good position, I just wanted to try and fix the mistakes I made in the first run. I was feeling calm, and I think that was one of the main reasons it went so well."
The course started with three jumps, where Barclay laced together a right double 1260 into a huge switch left double 1620 into a left double 1080 mute.
Up next was the technical rail section, where we had already seen many top skiers make crucial errors. Barclay had no problems, putting down a pretzel 630 out of the first rail, a switch 270 on, back swap, front 270 out of the second rail and a 270 on, pretzel 270 out of the final rail.
His second run was rewarded with an 82.71 from the judges, leap frogging him into second place. With 11 skiers still to drop it was a nervous wait for Ben.
"For the first six skiers I was pretty calm as I didn't think it [second position] would hold, given the remaining 11 athletes were some of the best in the world. When it got to the last five skiers, I was feeling anxious and nervous. Once it got to the last two skiers, I realised I had a confirmed podium finish, and all the weight was lifted off my shoulders. When I found out I had snagged second place it was the best feeling anyone could ever ask for," Barclay said.
Andri Ragettli (SUI) secured his ninth World Cup podium, taking the win today and Edouard Therriault (CAN) rounded out the podium in third.
This was the final World Cup event before next month's Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
Barclay is yet to be selected to the New Zealand Team for China, but his latest result will help his case in the upcoming selection this week.