day 13 saw Alpine action for Dave Ryding and Billy Major, while Andrew Young and James Clugnet bowed out of the Cross Country Men’s Team Sprint Classic

Ryding takes 13th while Major makes debut

The highly-anticipated Men’s Slalom event drew to a close with Dave Ryding in 13th position after a day of highly challenging, technical skiing. Joining Ryding in the starting gate for Team GB was Billy Major, making his Olympic debut at 25.

Skiing in Bib 32, Major was lightning fast out of the gate but saw a straddle bring his charge to a close in the first run, one of 36 skiers to post a DNF in the first run alone.

Ryding, meanwhile, saw a mistake in the first run leave him in 16th position at the turn and requiring a sensational second run to put him in podium contention.

Briefly it appeared he may have pulled off something special as his second run time of 50.44 put Ryding at the top of the standings, but the gap to the first run’s frontrunners proved too much and saw him finish in 13th position.

After the race, Dave said:

“[I’d give myself a] C plus! I started great in the first run and lost the rhythm. My second run I knew that I wasn’t quite flowing enough.

“Even though I took the lead I knew it wasn’t enough. You can feel it when you’re skiing. It felt more like a struggle than a flow today.

“I gave it what I had which I always do, so I can’t be too disappointed. It was just what it was today. You try and learn and I’ll try again next race.

“I still feel like I could ski Kitzbühel now like I did three weeks ago.

“It’s not like anything’s wrong. It’s just on the day, I was the wrong side of everyone rather than the right side of everyone. I wouldn’t change anything, no.

“We always do what we can. It’s easy to look back and pick on things. Day by day, we’ve done everything we can out here. It’s just what it was today.

“[on the impacts of Brexit on British skiing] It is what it is. It makes things even harder for us. We do what we can. We have a good team and a good federation now.

“I’m confident they’ll take care of everything and I won’t have to worry about that. That’s the good thing now.

“We’ve got the National Lottery on board now. We’ll see how happy they are after my performance today.

“I’ve got to thank them, thank the federation because now I can just worry about the performance.”

Billy Major also spoke after the race:

“I didn’t feel like I got off to the best start. I felt a little bit up against it and a little bit off with timing.

“Maybe I just had a bit of a feeling of needing to let it go coming onto this final section. I pushed it a bit too much and let the feet get away from me. I couldn’t make the next gate.

“It’s frustrating. Certain people see it as you have to finish to be in the race and to make it down.

“At the end of the day you need to finish but I was trying to push out there and show my best skiing. Unfortunately today it wasn’t in the finish.”

GB bow out at semi-final stage in Men’s XC Team Sprint Classic

Andrew Young and James Clugnet’s bid for Cross-Country glory came to an end in the semi-finals of the Men’s Team Sprint Classic. Going out in semi-final one, the pair finished in 10th position with an overall time of 21:15.27, 57.99 seconds behind the leading Norwegian pair. With only the top four qualifying from each semi-final, the result brings to an end British interest in the XC team events at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

Header Image: Dave Ryding in the Olympic Winter Games 2022 Men’s Slalom. Photo: GEPA pictures/ Daniel Goetzhaber