Kiwi teenager Ben Barclay is making a late push for a selection at this year’s Winter Olympics after claiming a career-best second place at the Freeski Slopestyle World Cup in France.
The 19-year-old earned his first World Cup podium finish after two solid runs in Font Romeu.
He said shortly after the result would take a while to settle in.
“Right now it doesn’t seem too real, the goal was far exceeded today," Barclay said.
"Our plan was to have a safe run to help secure Olympic selection, but everything just fell into line and I couldn’t be happier.”
Barclay managed to sit fourth after the first round with a decent run but knew if he wanted to turn heads, he'd need an impressive second appearance.
“I didn’t have too much stress going into the second run as I was sitting in a good position, I just wanted to try and fix the mistakes I made in the first run," he said.
"I was feeling calm, and I think that was one of the main reasons it went so well.”
The course started with three jumps, where Ben laced together a right double 1260 into a huge switch left double 1620 into a left double 1080 mute.
Up next was the technical rail section - a zone where many top skiers had been making crucial errors throughout - but Barclay breezed through, putting down a pretzel 630 out of the first rail, a switch 270 on, back swap, front 270 out of the second rail and a 270 on, pretzel 270 out of the final rail.
The run was awarded 82.71 by the judges to push Barclay into second place but with 11 skiers still to drop after him, the wait became torture.
“For the first six skiers I was pretty calm as I didn’t think it [second position] would hold, given the remaining 11 athletes were some of the best in the world," he said.
"When it got to the last five skiers, I was feeling anxious and nervous.
"Once it got to the last two skiers, I realised I had a confirmed podium finish, and all the weight was lifted off my shoulders.
"When I found out I had snagged second place it was the best feeling anyone could ever ask for."
Barclay was joined by Canada's Edouard Therriault and Swiss winner Andri Tagettli on the podium.
The event in France was the final freeski competition before the Winter Olympics, meaning Barclay will find out later this week if it was enough to earn him selection with the NZOC.
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