Winter Olympics 2022: 'After that bad slam I am happy to be walking' - Gus Kenworthy's mixed emotions after final run

ByAlex Livie

Updated 19/02/2022 at 09:05 GMT

In his third appearance at an Olympic Games, Gus Kenworthy was looking to bring the curtain down on his skiing career in style. It was not to be as he suffered a big crash in his second run on the men's halfpipe final and had to settle for eighth place behind winner Nico Porteous. The Olympic Games will return with Paris 2024, live on Eurosport and discovery+.

Gus Kenworthy has admitted he was happy to walk away in one piece after bringing the curtain down on his skiing career with an eighth-placed finish in the men's halfpipe final.

The 30-year-old, making his third appearance at an Olympics, overcame a horrible fall on his second run to put down a solid effort in his final outing to claim eighth.

Kenworthy admitted that the treacherous conditions were not ideal for the final competition of his career, but felt relieved to walk away unharmed.

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“It wasn't the run I wanted to do,” he said. “Considering the conditions, I still had more that I wanted, but after that bad slam I am happy to be walking and land the run and getting through it in one piece.

“It is a good show despite how gnarly it is out here.”

Nico Porteous was the hot favourite and he took gold, but Kenworthy felt luck played a part in the outcome.

“In skiing, wind is the biggest factor we face,” Kenworthy said. “Snow you can deal with, even if a course is not to your liking you can adapt, but when it is windy - especially when it gusts - it is out of your control and is a luck game.”

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Kenworthy continued by saying how much the sport has meant to him, and paid tribute to his mother for setting him on the path to being a three-time Olympian.

“Skiing has meant the whole world to me,” Kenworthy, a silver medallist in Sochi in 2014, said. “I started doing this when I was three.

“My mom and I learned together. She was 41 and used to sing to me on the chair lift and I’d take naps in her lap and fall asleep and wake up at the top and do another run.

“I am eternally indebted to this sport. I feel so grateful to be a part of it and to go to three Olympic games.”

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