Stood rigid in the blizzards of Livigno was a 21-year-old Scottish girl forced to comprehend how, for the second time in eight days, she had missed out on an Olympic medal by a matter of fractions. It might take a while for Kirsty Muir to figure it out.
This was a brutal repetition of recent history, with Team GB’s most promising freestyle skier mimicking her fourth place in the slopestyle last Monday with another in the Big Air, sealed with a crash in a death-or-glory leap on the very last of her three jumps.
Is there a more painful place to finish than fourth?
Regrettably, Muir is qualified to discuss such a scenario in some detail, having finished behind the gold medallist Megan Oldham of Canada, China’s Eileen Gu and the world champion Flora Tabanelli, an Italian who, astonishingly, was competing after snapping the cruciate ligament of her right knee four months ago.
Quite how Muir found herself on the outside looking in is a story that ended in high drama. With four jumpers to go on the third run of three, including herself, Muir was in place for bronze.
But up stepped Tabanelli, the local 18-year-old who trains in this very best snow park, and what followed was the best score of the night – 94.25 points. It was phenomenal, and for Muir it left an equation that was simple and devilish all at once – she needed around 92 points to steel the medal right back.
Team GB’s Kirsty Muir finished fourth in an event for the second time at the Winter Olympics
The 21-year-old produced a superb showing and went big for her third attempt but could not quite land it cleanly
Muir had put herself in contention for a medal with a superb second attempt in Livigno
And so she flew high into the snowy sky and touched down onto her backside on the landing, failing to improve her score and losing out on a top-three by just 3.5 points.
Muir said: ‘I’m a bit up and down at the moment. I’m not really sure how to feel. I put it all out there so I’m really proud of that. On the third run I went for a trick I haven’t landed before and gave it my all and I’m taking that with me.
‘At the point, I had to go for it and I’m stoked that I tried it. It’s really bittersweet. I came into this competition today feeling really grateful and I think I’m still at that point.’
As with last Monday, the tears fell, proving again that the Olympics can be a beautiful arena and also a cruel one.
‘At the point, I had to go for it and I’m stoked that I tried it. It’s really bittersweet. I came into this competition today feeling really grateful and I think I’m still at that point.’
In Muir’s case, the deficits to a medal were subtle. To all intents and purposes, this was a prize taken from her rather than lost, which is perhaps the difference to the slopestyle, where she performed below her best.
Here, she was edged by the superior quality of three other women, albeit after making a sluggish start. With the best two of three jumps counting to an aggregated score, she found herself in eighth after a first round that had been delayed by 75 minutes due to a snow storm.
Her routine had been conservative by the standards of those around her and the Scot’s score of 81.75 points was immediately pressurised by each of Lara Wolf (93.5), Oldham (91.75), Gu and Tabanelli (both 90).
The onus on the second jump was huge and so was Muir’s score – corkscrewing high off the ramp into four and a half rotations and a reverse landing, the judges rated her effort at 93 and suddenly she was second behind Oldham alone. In the local parlance, she looked stoked. Game on.
But still the others would not buckle. First she was passed by Gu, the defending champion, and then Tabanelli. Over to Muir. She went high, she went big, and once again, she came down in fourth.