The event, which is new to the Olympics, has skiers launch off a ramp to perform tricks that are scored based on the number of rotations, flips and grabs. Just like the event itself, Oldham is making her Olympic debut this year. She led the pack heading into finals after placing first in the qualifying rounds. She ended the event with a score of 178, trailing 4.5 points behind Swiss bronze medalist Mathilde Gremaud. Competitor Eileen Gu took gold for China while France’s Tess Ledeux took silver.

Oldham will have another chance to add to Canada’s medal count by competing in the women’s freeski slopestyle event this weekend. The qualifying runs begin this Saturday at 9 p.m. EST with finals starting at 8:30 p.m. the next day. 

Local residents and businesses have shared their support for Oldham through signs, social media and more, and she isn’t the only Parry Sound-Muskoka athlete in Beijing.

Fellow Parry Sound olympian Graham Ritchie competed in the men’s individual sprint free cross-country skiing event. He placed 34th in the qualifying rounds, missing out on the top 30 slots that advanced to the quarter finals by less than a second.

Gravenhurst snowboarder Liam Brearley is also in China, attending as an alternate for the snowboard slopestyle event. Though he didn’t compete, he was able to practice alongside fellow Canadian athletes Max Parrot and Mark McMorris, who won gold and bronze respectively in the event this past weekend.

Another Parry Sound athlete, wheelchair curler Mark Ideson, will be competing in the Paralympic Winter Games, which take place from March 4 to 13.

? What an Olympic debut for Megan Oldham & Olivia Asselin! ⛷

In the women’s freeski big air final, Oldham put down two solid jumps, earning a score of 178 points for 4th place.⁣⁣ ?

➕ Asselin finished 8th with 147.50 points, saving her best for her final run (85.50). ? pic.twitter.com/dCnMtbYDzP

— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) February 8, 2022

The post Parry Sound Skier Narrowly Misses Olympic Podium In Women’s Big Air Event appeared first on Muskoka411.

Brearley placed seventh in the opening World Cup big air competition of the season while fellow Canadian Max Parrot took gold. Though young, Brearley has already proven his skills by winning bronze at a World Cup event in Calgary and making history as the first Canadian to win three medals at a Winter Youth Olympic Games. Despite his past successes, the 17-year-old didn’t expect to do as well as he did at the big air competition in Kreischberg, Austria.

“I had no expectations of making finals or coming that high in the rankings at all,” Brearley said. “When I went into it, it was kind of the mindset of just give it all I’ve got in qualifiers because I didn’t really think that I was going to make it too far based on the field this year since it’s an Olympic Qualifying year as well. And so I came out swinging, and it ended up working out.”

Though plans for the rest of the season are up in the air, the next competition for Brearley is a slopestyle event in Switzerland on Jan. 22. The competition is more intense and the stakes are higher being that it’s an Olympic qualifying year, but Brearley said he feels confident about what he can do heading into the event.

“The field is going to be a lot heavier and this event in particular, the Laax Open, is one of the biggest World Cup events that there is every year,” he said. “I’m a little more nervous than I might be if it was a normal World Cup and normal year, but I’m pretty excited to compete with all the people that I’ve been looking up to since I was young.”

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