Bruno Cuaz, with AFP
modified to
09:19, February 08, 2022
Freestyle skier Tess Ledeux secured the silver medal in big air skiing behind Chinese star Eileen Gu on Tuesday and thus brings France its fourth medal, all silver, of the Beijing Games. Ledeux, in the lead after two of the three passages, was finally narrowly overtaken by Gu, victorious with a total of 188.25 points against 187.50 for the Frenchwoman. Swiss Mathilde Gremaud ranks third (182.50).
The first appearance of big air at the Olympics
Big air skiing, which consists of jumping off a giant springboard to perform acrobatic tricks, is on the Olympic program for the first time. On the structure installed in the heart of Beijing’s industrial wasteland, between chimneys, blast furnaces and cooling towers of a former steel factory, Ledeux hit hard at the start of this final in three rounds by signing a “double cork 1620”, i.e. a rotation of four and a half turns, rewarded with 94.50 points. She did not weaken then by succeeding in a “switch left 1440”, this time four towers in the air, which earned her 93 points.
But Gu, who grew up in the United States but chose Chinese nationality, beat her to the wire by also completing these four and a half laps, for the first time, during her very last visit, and also obtained 94.50 points. A first jump rewarded with 93.75 points (right double 1440) allowed him to dislodge Ledeux from first place in extremis.
The upcoming slopestyle event for Tess Ledeux
The big air ski final consists of three passes. The two best runs constitute the final mark. Ledeux had arrived in Beijing freshly titled in both big air and slopestyle (a ski course full of metal obstacles and jumps) at the X-Games in Aspen, the benchmark competition for extreme winter sports. She had become the first woman to succeed in competition this “double cork 1620”.
The Savoyard has yet to compete in the slopestyle event at the Beijing Games, this time at the mountain site of Zhangjiakou, where she will also be one of the main contenders for the Olympic podium. Ledeux, who had the pain of losing her father a year ago, was crowned slopestyle world champion in 2017, at the age of 15, and big air in 2019.