Kirsty Muir lands double cork 1440 but left to face ‘tough’ fourth place

Kirsty Muir landed one of the toughest tricks in the book but it was not quite enough to seal Great Britain’s first medal of the Milan and Cortina Olympics in the women’s ski slopestyle final at Livigno Snow Park.

Muir summoned a double cork 1440 on her final run but scored 76.05, agonisingly short of the 76.46 of third-placed Canadian Megan Oldham. She had ranked sixth after her second of three runs, with each athlete’s single best score determining the final rankings.

Disappointment was etched on the face of the 21-year-old Muir, who arrived at the Games on the back of a gold medal at the prestigious Aspen X Games two weeks ago. Her winning score there, 93.66, would have been enough to give her the Olympic title with something to spare.

Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud won gold with 86.96 with China’s Eileen Gu second on 86.58.

“I’m quite mixed at the moment,” said Muir, who still has the freestyle Big Air competition to come next week. “I’m not angry with myself, not disappointed, but fourth place is just a tough place to be.

“I had difficulties in the first two runs, and got a bit annoyed with myself after the second. I’m really happy that I managed to pull myself back and put a run down. I obviously wanted to be on that podium, but I’m going to try to take the positives.”

Muir had touched down on her opening run and lifted herself into sixth place after the second. In order to give herself the best chance of muscling onto the podium, she put everything on one of biggest scoring tricks in round three, and was the only competitor in the field to land it.

“I went back to safety to just try to get a run down and get my 14 in the last jump, because that’s one of my biggest tricks,” added Muir. “So I knew that would be quite good in my run.

“It’s hard to say how I’m feeling right now. I’ve got a lot to process.”

Muir will have plenty of time to rouse herself ahead of next week’s Big Air, in which she has another medal chance. The Scot finished sixth in the Big Air final when she made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2022.