{"id":465429,"date":"2026-02-08T01:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465429\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:13:09","slug":"valentino-guseli-missed-out-on-a-bonus-2026-winter-olympics-medal-but-won-something-even-more-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465429\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentino Guseli missed out on a bonus 2026 Winter Olympics medal, but won something even more important"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn’t from a lack of trying.<\/p>\n

Valentino Guseli may have missed a medal in the snowboard big air final<\/a>, finishing in a hugely credible 10th place in Saturday night’s final at the Livigno Snow Park.<\/p>\n

But in competing in the event for the first time at the Olympics, he reclaimed something far more important.<\/p>\n

You can also stay across the highs and lows of the Games with the ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a> and ABC Sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I had a lot of personal wins,” Guseli told the media after the final.<\/p>\n

“I did the first backside 1800 on snow since I did my ACL on that same trick a year and a half ago in China<\/a>, so that’s a massive personal win.<\/p>\n

“Getting over that and owning that trick again instead of it owning me.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Valentino<\/p>\n

Valentino Guseli had a bonus final appearance, and he made great use of it. (Getty Images: Hannah Peters)<\/p>\n

That ACL injury is the principal reason Guseli was not able to compete in big air, slopestyle and his favoured half pipe off his own merits due to the time it forced him off the snow and out of competition.<\/p>\n

A good thing to put to bed, in that case.<\/p>\n

Of course, Guseli was never really supposed to be in the big air final in the first place.<\/p>\n

He shouldn’t have even started the qualifiers but for a late call-up after Canadian Mark McMorris went down in practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, I took qualies as a little bit of a joke,” Guseli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if that sounds bad, but since I didn’t expect to be there, and then when I got there it was such late notice, I sort of \u2026 I had goals, I didn’t have expectations.<\/p>\n

“I just went out there and tried to do the best riding I could, and then miraculously I made the finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And then, yeah, tonight I took it a little bit more seriously.<\/p>\n

\"Valentino<\/p>\n

Valentino Guseli landed a jump that had caused him such pain 18 months before. (Getty Images: Hannah Peters)<\/p>\n

“It was the third time I landed the switchback 19 ever in my life, which was my second trick, and it was the first time I ever tried the back 19, which was the last trick that I crashed on. Unfortunately.”<\/p>\n

As the beats pumped and the crowd gazed up at the whirring phenomena descending upon them from the frigid, inky sky, it’s both paradoxically easy and baffling to think you could consider this a laughing matter.<\/p>\n

The towering, 40-metre high structure looms at the end of the postcard picturesque Alpine town like a fairground show \u2014 the most eye-catching of temporary big tops juxtaposed into a high-end snowy paradise.<\/p>\n

With the continuous music and the strobe lights highlighting the surrounding peaks, the event was rave-like amidst the highest stakes of an Olympic final.<\/p>\n

\"Valentino<\/p>\n

Valentino Guseli was in with a shot of a medal with a jump to go. (Getty Images: Michael Reaves)<\/p>\n

“I was just stoked to be out there riding,” Guseli said.<\/p>\n

“First big air final in quite a long time. First big air [Olympic] final \u2026 first big air comp in the Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I left it all out there for sure. I couldn’t have tried harder or wanted it more. So yeah, no regrets.”<\/p>\n

Read more about the Winter Olympics:<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old certainly made the most of his bonus opportunity.<\/p>\n

The 10th-place finish is his best in a big air event since 2023. It is only his fourth big air event since he ruptured his ACL in 2024.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

And Guseli was fully aware that he was there thanks to the misfortune of a rival competitor in McMorris, who may yet be forced to give up his slopestyle spot too, although Guseli was not counting on that.<\/p>\n

“I’d say he’ll probably be OK for slopestyle, which is really good news because you never want to see one of your competitors not be able to compete, especially someone that’s done as much for the sport as Mark has,” Guseli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I haven’t spoken to him or even seen him or anything, but something that I wanted to make sure I did was \u2026 \u00a0kind of like, he came out, I went in, so essentially I had his spot and I wanted to do something special with his spot, to sort of just pay my respects to him.”<\/p>\n

And given he used his chance, proffered by one injury to banish the memory of another that arguably cost him his spot at the Games in the event anyway, he certainly did it justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn’t from a lack of trying. Valentino Guseli may have missed a medal in the snowboard big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[110809,64,63,238234,190438,234686,142583,85852,85,196605,196603,234053,31080],"class_list":{"0":"post-465429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-big-air","12":"tag-milan-cortina","13":"tag-milan-cortina-2026","14":"tag-milano-cortina","15":"tag-snowboard","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-val-guseli","18":"tag-valentino-guseli","19":"tag-winter-olympic-games","20":"tag-winter-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}