Winter Olympics: British freestyle skier Kirsty Muir lands rare ‘dub 12’ trick in Big Air finals

Seventeen-year-old Kirsty Muir forged a fresh and fearless Olympic narrative in the dystopian surroundings of the former Shuogang steelworks on Tuesday, finishing fifth in the women’s freestyle Big Air behind Chinese superstar Eileen Gu.

Muir landed a rare ‘dub 12’ trick on her opening jump to establish herself in medal contention, and had no regrets about crashing out on an even more ambitious third and final attempt when a place on the podium might have been at her mercy.

“I wanted to go for it and I’m proud of myself for doing that,” said Muir, a former Youth Olympics silver medallist who has put her higher exams on hold to pursue her Olympic dream, and will also feature in the slopestyle event next week.

“Getting to the final, I knew I’d be happiest if I really went for it. The level was insane and I’m super-happy. I landed the (dub 12) trick before but I tried it with a different grab which I’ve only landed in competition once before, and that was definitely the best I’ve ever done it.”

Muir, who had qualified for the final in seventh place, ranked third after her first of three jumps with a score of 90.25, and after a relatively safe second jump – with the cumulative total of the best two to count – she threw it all into a final effort which saw her crash out.

With Peng Shuai and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach in attendance, Gu landed her final trick, a left double cork 1620, for the first time in her career to push Tess Ledeux of France into the silver medal position and delight a raucous home crowd on the outskirts of the capital city.

The 18-year-old Gu was born in America but chose to represent China where she is nicknamed the ‘Snow Princess’. She dropped to her knees when her third score