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Billy Morgan qualifies for Inaugural Olympic Big Air Final

Billy Morgan qualifies for Inaugural Olympic Big Air Final

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Started by J2SkiNews in Winter Olympics & Paralympics - Pyeongchang 2018

Billy Morgan qualifies for Inaugural Olympic Big Air Final

J2SkiNews posted Feb-2018



Earlier today Team GB's snowboarder Billy Morgan qualified for the first ever Olympic men's snowboard big air final on Saturday.

Morgan, 28, finished sixth and took the final qualification place in heat two with a best score of 90.50 on his second run.

"I needed to squeeze as many points out of it as possible. I had to do deep and I did. Basically it meant I needed to get the highest score I could for a back triple," said Morgan, adding, "Someone had to do a more technical trick to beat me. There are few guys who can do tricks but not with that grab. The standard is mental, everyone has been killing it.
"It's going to be mental in the final. I would need a lot of luck to podium now after seeing what's going on. Watching practice it has been mental. But anything can happen, I will try my best."

There were two other Brits trying for qualification, Rowan Coultas finished eighth in heat one of the men's snowboard big air competition. Second run score of 84.50 was 0.50 off qualifying for the final inside the top six.

"I'm feeling amazing, I'm so stoked to land those runs. It went to plan, I managed to smash training and get it a few times. I'd never done the trick in a competition before so maybe that's why I'm so stoked. In the second run, I just wanted to go as big as possible to score those extra few points and I managed to do that. I'm just really to happy to land. It was a stacked heat so you could tell by the scores it would be really tight to squeeze in there. It's been an amazing Games, I'm definitely going to try to go to the next one."

Jamie Nicholls became the first ever male snowboarder to compete in an Olympic big air competition and got a best score which came on the second run of 81.25, which placed him 11th.

"My first run I felt a little nervous. Obviously being the first male snowboarder to drop in to the first big air at the Olympics, it was scary. I was stood up there for a while, the crowds were cheering and going for it and I was just stood up there and I was quiet. I was nervous. I messed up my first run but I felt like that was down to my nerves. And then I got my second run really good, I was really happy with it, no hands down."
On the progression of snowboarding on the Olympic stage

"It's just good to be part of such a high standard of snowboard big air. I'm excited for the future and the next four years and going into the next Games. I think it's amazing for the sport, I'm so glad we now have big air, slopestyle and halfpipe all in the Olympics, it's brilliant. The sport has progressed so much and evolved so much and it's great to see everybody killing it in different disciplines."


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