Eileen Gu takes Big Air gold in Beijing as Kirsty Muir finishes fifth

On her back with only one ski still attached, Kirsty Muir went down fighting. There have been disappointing performances by the British contingent at these Winter Olympics, and there have been generous coats of varnish applied to many of their fallen, but none of that applies to the Scottish schoolgirl who took fifth in the freeski Big Air on Tuesday.

On a day when Eileen Gu, the American-turned-Chinese skiing phenomenon, justified her billing as the star of her sport with gold, Muir, 17, left with a reputation enhanced and no room for regrets.

She was third after a brilliant first run of 90.25, fifth after a respectable second of 78.75, but faced with her final crack, she went for it. 

The Scottish schoolgirl left it all out on the slopes after crashing on her final jump 

It would have taken a monstrous effort to crash the podium at that stage, with a battle of the ages raging between Gu, France’s Tess Ledeux and Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland, so she tried to pull out something big.

In the context of her thrilling and dangerous business, that meant attempting a high-tariff, high-risk trick she had never pulled off in competition before – in their jargon they call it a switch misty 10 In sensible English, it is a 60mph charge backwards down a 50m ramp, a launch high into the air, followed by three complete turns and a prayer for a gentle landing.

She got all bar one of those right, with a hard fall and a scattering of her equipment. Needing a 92 to get on the podium, she instead got a no score, and so it was over. But in taking such a fearless approach to a tough workplace, especially with the slopestyle discipline still to come on Sunday, she emerged with considerable credit.

‘I went for a switch misty 10 in the last jump which I’ve never tried before – I just wanted to go for it, and I’m just so happy that I went and tried it,’ she said.

‘I’m so happy right now honestly, the level was insane. It feels amazing [to be a part of it]. I couldn’t have hoped to have skied better today and I’m so proud of all the girls.’

Home favourite Eileen Gu lived up to her top billing as she claimed the gold medal in Beijing

The Scot added: ‘I will focus on the slopestyle now and when it’s done I’m back to school.’

Undoubtedly, the star of the show was Gu, 18. She arrived at the Games to a blaze of differing publicity, in small part because she is attempting a treble of big air, slopestyle and halfpipe gold, and primarily because she competed for the US before switching to her mother’s homeland. 

She was called a ‘traitor’ on social media, of course, and more pertinently has been caught in the crossfire of the China-US narrative.

With the Chinese wanting the better shades of metal from their acquisition at a home Games, the pressure on the athlete, who doubles as a model, was extreme. 

But so too is her talent. Going into the final run, she was third, but a massive 94.50 on her final jump pushed Ledeux into silver. Mathilde Gremaud claimed bronze.

Tess Ledeux, of France, won silver (left) while Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud (right) was third