Spain's Queralt Castellet claims historic snowboard silver: "Nothing good comes easy"

Queralt Castellet put down a sensational second run to win snowboard halfpipe silver behind Chloe Kim and could hardly contain all the emotion.

The 32-year-old hit back-to-back 900s on Run 2 and claimed silver at her fifth Games, a joyful moment after finishing 11th in Sochi and seventh in PyeongChang.

"All the emotions just exploded at the end," she told Olympics.com in Beijing.

"And today was amazing even though I didn't start on the right foot, on the second run everything came out, the nerves, the pressure, my thoughts of how important this is and somehow the strength came as well.

"Somehow I managed to put it all together in the second run and make it happen."

Fourth in qualifying the day before the final, Catellet seized the day and this is the peak of a lifetime's work.

"I have been working on it so much and just enjoy and make my riding happen and that's what it was and I couldn't be happier.

"I did a run that I wanted to do and it just worked out with second place which is still amazing after Chloe, she's an incredible rider, an incredible athlete."

Her silver medal is a Spanish woman's best ever result at the Olympic Winter Games, and it's the latest in a career of firsts for Castellet.

Her silver at the 2015 Worlds was Spain's first snowboarding medal at a world champs, and she is now the most decorated Spanish snowboarder and winter athlete in history.

But it hasn't been easy.

She's broken her wrist, her jaw, dislocated her shoulder, been forced to withdraw from competition due to concussion - all sustained in crashes in training or competition.

Surgery, recovery, physio, pain, comebacks. Queralt has been through it all to get where she is, but perhaps the most painful of all was losing her partner, coach and