Ben Lynch: The Irish skater takes eighth place in the halfpipe final

Ireland’s Ben Lynch finished eighth in the men’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final at the Winter Olympics.

Making his Olympic debut, the 23-year-old Dublin native made history earlier today when he became the first Irish skater to reach the final with an 11th-place finish in the opening session thanks to a second heat score of 75.75.

Lynch attacked the first two of his three runs, but was ninth of 11 in the final round as faltering in each resulted in scores of 39.75 and 44.25.

Knowing he couldn’t afford another slip, his final run was less aggressive as he remained upright throughout for a distance of 75.00 that initially saw him finish seventh, but he dropped a place after Brendan MacKay’s run that saw the Canadian take bronze.

“It feels really good, especially since eight is my lucky number. My birthday is September 8, and I got eight stitches above my eyebrow here, so eight has always been my lucky number, and the fact that I just got eight, it’s like the stars aligned,” Lynch said.

“It’s definitely still surreal, but it’s sinking in a little bit. It’s pretty cool, because my best finish was 16th, so I halved that for the Olympics, and I couldn’t be happier to be here.

“I tried hard to focus on running, not worrying about the result, and I ended up doing the best I could.

“I think before that, I had only gotten over 60s in World Cup finals. It’s hard to get high scores at World Cup levels. It’s the best score I’ve ever had, and I also got it in qualifying, so I’m very excited.”

The gold medal went to Alex Ferreira of the United States⁠who scored 93.75 points in his final round with Estonia’s Henri Sildaro⁠who took the silver ahead of Mackay who finished third.

Team GB’s Gus Kenworthy finished sixth thanks to his second round 84.75.