How a halfpipe skier who didn’t do any tricks managed to qualify for the Olympics
Elizabeth Swaney finished 24th and last in qualification for the women's ski halfpipe final, but the 33-year-old will leave Pyeongchang having achieved exactly what she wanted — to compete at an Olympic Games.
Swaney, born and raised in the United States but representing Hungary, finished bottom of the standings after laying down two basic runs that left her more than 40 points behind the 12th-placed qualifier for the final.
Although she completed both runs without falling, Swaney did not attempt a trick any more advanced than an alley-oop — when a skier rotates 180 degrees or more in the uphill direction — on her way to scores of 30.00 and 31.40.
Swaney's best score still left her 13.60 points behind 23rd-placed Dane Laila Friis-Salling, who slipped on both runs.
Despite appearing to only be interested in completing her runs safely while not attempting to score points or qualify for the final, Swaney still managed to sound downbeat about her performance.
"I didn't qualify for the finals, so I'm really disappointed with that. But I worked really for several years to achieve this," she replied when asked about her emotions after competing at an Olympics.
"I have been focusing on my Olympic experience but also on the halfpipe here and trying to go higher each time and getting more spins in."
How did she qualify?
Swaney said she qualified to represent Hungary through her maternal grandparents after previously competing for Venezuela in other winter sports, before switching her allegiance again in 2016 to prepare for Pyeongchang.
A Harvard graduate who once ran against Arnold Schwarzenegger in the race to be California governor, Swaney only started skiing at 25 and has been driven ever since in her quest to compete at an Olympics.
After raising funds through online donation websites to help fuel her Olympic ambitions, Swaney managed to qualify for Pyeongchang due to the sheer volume of competitions she attended.
As Jason Blevins of the Denver Post explained, the field for ladies' halfpipe is not expansive — qualifying for the Olympics involves recording a certain number of consistent top-30 finishes in events, and often many of these events did not even have 30 competitors.
In order to qualify, Swaney persisted with easy runs, sometimes not even attempting tricks, to make sure she did not fall and always recorded a score.
Thanks to this system, she eventually qualified for the Olympics, despite her lack of tricks.
Her best finish came at Secret Garden in China when she finished 13th out of 15 athletes, while a majority of her Olympic rivals were competing in the US Grand Prix at Copper Mountain or on the Dew Tour.
"The field is not that deep in the women's pipe and she went to every World Cup, where there were only 24, 25, or 28 women," FIS judge Steele Spence told the Denver Post.
"She would compete in them consistently over the last couple years and sometimes girls would crash so she would not end up dead last."
However, Swaney said she still hoped to inspire others who might be intimidated by the prospect of skiing up and down the steep walls of the halfpipe.
"It is an honour to compete at the Olympics and I am really excited to compete among other amazing women from across the world," she said.
"I want to show others that freestyle skiing is possible and it is never too late to get into this sport, and to help others to dream and to progress the sport in Hungary. I hope this can be a platform to inspire others."
ABC/Reuters
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