{"id":308792,"date":"2026-02-20T23:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308792\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T23:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:09:10","slug":"ben-lynch-finishes-eighth-after-making-history-as-first-irish-skier-to-qualify-for-winter-olympics-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308792\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Lynch finishes eighth after making history as first Irish skier to qualify for Winter Olympics final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dublin-born Lynch (23) had to wait a day to open his Winter Olympics account in Milano-Cortina after the men\u2019s freestyle halfpipe event was pushed back 24 hours due to adverse weather conditions.<\/p>\n

However, Lynch produced what commentators labelled \u201cthe performance of his life\u201d with a second round score of 75.75 to make the final field of 12, which took place this evening.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland's<\/p>\n

Ireland’s Benjamin Lynch celebrates after qualifying for the final of the Men’s Freestyle Halfpipe at the Livigno Snow Park, on day 14 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Photo: David Davies\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

And the Irishman repeated the feat in his third run during the final, having stumbled on his first two, with a score of 75.0 that was enough to secure a hugely creditable eighth place finish. <\/p>\n

A score of 93.75 was enough for Alex Ferreira of the USA to take gold, followed by silver for Henry Sildaru of Estonia and bronze for Canada’s Brendan Mackay.<\/p>\n

“It feels really cool, especially because eight is my lucky number,\u201d a delighted Lynch said afterwards. \u201cMy birthday is September 8, I got eight stitches above my eyebrow here, so eight has always been my lucky number, and the fact that I just got eighth, like, the stars aligned.<\/p>\n

“It definitely still feels surreal, but it’s sinking in a little bit. It’s pretty cool, because my last best result was 16th, so I halved that the Olympics, and couldn’t be more happy to be here.<\/p>\n

“I just tried really hard to focus on the run, not worry about the result, and I ended up landing it pretty much as good as I possibly could have<\/p>\n

“I think before this, I’d only gotten around the 60s in World Cups. It’s hard to get high scores in World Cup levels. It’s the best score I’ve ever gotten and I also got that in qualifiers so I’m just so stoked.”<\/p>\n

Lynch, who spent his early years in Rathmines, had earlier said: \u201cI\u2019m feeling unbelievable. I\u2019m so excited. Really, really grateful to be here and to make the finals is a cherry on top for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m officially an Olympian and officially a finalist as well, which is just mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his first run, the Dublin-born skier finished clean with a score of 57.00, giving him confidence ahead of his second shot.<\/p>\n

Athletes got two opportunities to land a score, with the best score from either run counting towards their overall standing.<\/p>\n

In his second run, Lynch threw everything at it, knowing that he had to go big to make it to the top 12, and landed a right double cork 12, a trick that he hadn\u2019t previously done in his training runs.<\/p>\n

Today was the first time he ever did two doubles in a contest run, and the first time he\u2019s ever landed two doubles in a row. The courage paid off resulting in a personal best score of 75.75, qualifying him for the final in 11th place.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland's<\/p>\n

Ireland’s Ben Lynch reacts during the men’s freestyle skiing halfpipe qualifications at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy. Photo: AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson<\/p>\n

Today’s News in 90 Seconds, Friday, February 20 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I did my first run, just like the singles run that I\u2019d planned to do. Landed it perfectly, and I went for the right 12 in my second run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t done it in training yet, so it was the first time for me today. I haven\u2019t done that trick since three, four months ago. So to land that in my run was unbelievable and I\u2019m really, really excited to be in finals right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the run I was thinking about landing my first tricks, not thinking too far ahead to the right 12 because it’s very easy to get distracted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, I visualised it beforehand and then I did my first two tricks, and then it was on, and I did it perfectly. Landed so well, and I\u2019m really, really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynch, who moved from Dublin to Canada at the age of two, has recently been recovering from a knee injury and is the last of Ireland\u2019s four-athlete team to make his debut at these Games.<\/p>\n

Lynch learned to ski in Vancouver and began competing at age 12, initially in slopestyle and big air before switching to halfpipe at 19.<\/p>\n

He previously spent time on the Canadian development pathway and transferred to represent Ireland in 2024.<\/p>\n

Lynch competes on the FIS World Cup circuit and recorded a 23rd-place finish at the Calgary World Cup in January 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin-born Lynch (23) had to wait a day to open his Winter Olympics account in Milano-Cortina after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112,23196],"class_list":{"0":"post-308792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-winter-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}