As Team GB’s Mia Brookes stood at the top of a 150ft‑high ramp before her final jump of the big air competition, she had the pounding heavy metal of Pantera blasting her ears, and the smell of an Olympic medal in her nostrils.
To grab it, though, the snowboarding sensation knew she would have to land a trick she had never attempted before on snow – and one so dangerous that she feared it would put her in hospital.
Brookes didn’t flinch. She bombed down the ramp – part Evel Knievel, part Simone Biles – flew off it, and then twisted her body through four and a half rotations. The trick? A backside 1620 – one that had been completed only once in history.
It looked perfect. Until she overspun slightly and landed on her heels. And with that her dreams of an Olympic medal had faded into fourth place.
Later the 19-year-old revealed that she had no plans to attempt the trick – until she stood in fourth place before her last jump.
“It’s not like it’s a trick that I could do,” she said. “I’ve only ever done it on the airbag and the last time I tried it was five months ago. So that was the first time I’ve ever tried it on snow. But sometimes you’ve just got to grit your teeth and get it done.
“I thought I’d got it and I did get it. I got it to my feet but I just gave it too much power, listening to my music too loud, I spun it too quickly. But yeah, I’m pumped.
“I was listening to a lot of Pantera. I tried it and I’m not lying in a hospital bed after this, to be honest. All jokes aside, it’s a gnarly trick to do. There is a higher risk, especially when you know I would be the second woman to do it. So, yeah it’s pretty scary.”
Most agreed that had Brookes landed it she would have secured at least a bronze medal, and possibly silver. Instead she could only applaud as Japan’s Kokomo Murase took gold, New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won silver, with the Korean Yu Seung-eun claiming bronze.
So close. Yet so far. And alas, it was that sort of day for Team GB. Before the start of play there were hopes within the British contingent that they could witness Magic Monday, with potential medals for Brookes, Kirsty Muir in the freeski slopestyle, and the mixed curling team, who were favourites in their semi-final against Sweden.
But this was a day where Magic Monday turned into Tragic Monday. First Muir missed out on a medal by 0.41 of a point, after thinking she might have done enough. No wonder she was in tears after finishing fourth.
Soon afterwards it was the turn of Team GB mixed curlers to disappoint. Having won eight of their nine group games, Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds were strong favourites for their semi-final against Sweden. But having gone into an early 1-0 lead, everything started to go wrong. In the second end, a poor clearance from Mouat allowed the Swedes to go 2-1 up. They lost the hammer to go 3-1 down. But having clawed it back to 3-3, the British pair made three mistakes in a row during a Swedish powerplay and dropped five shots.
Soon afterwards it was over as Team GB lost 9-3 in a puzzlingly meek performance. “That was my worst game of the week and it put us behind from the get-go,” Dodds said. “Obviously not the result we were after. They played great. They capitalised on all of our mistakes. They’ve been on a roll the last couple of games with the round robin as well.”
There was more disappointment as Team GB’s ice dancers, Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear, were left in fourth place after scoring 85.47 in the rhythm dance. They lie behind the French pair of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron (90.18), the USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates (89.72) and Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier (86.18) and face a battle to win a medal.
Still, all of them will have chances of redemption. On Tuesday, Mouat and Dodds will play the defending champions Italy, who lost 9-8 to the US in the other semi-final, in the bronze medal match. Fear and Gibson have the free programme on Wednesday. And Muir and Brookes compete in their best events next week.
Brookes, for one, is still buzzing after coming so close to making Olympic history. “And the girl that won, Koko, she’s the only girl that has that trick right now,” she said.
“So if I’d have landed it I would have been the second woman to do it. It’s really special. For women snowboarding if I’d have landed that it would have been insane.”
Brookes also reminded us that these freeskiers and snowboarders are built differently. For while they would love an Olympic medal, pushing the boundaries of what is possible is just as important.
“I think everyone will be just as stoked about me trying a 16 than me getting a medal,” she said. And when asked if she would go all out again next week, Brookes’ response was unflinching. “Oh yeah, 100% definitely.”
