Harrington takes bronze in freeski slopestyle
- editor59343
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Luca Harrington has claimed New Zealand’s second medal of the 2026 Milano Cortina Games In a tight final coming down to that came down to the very last run,
Harrington delivered a spectacular clutch performance under immense pressure to claim bronze in Freeski Slopestyle.
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Lining up for the final, Ben Barclay and Harrington each had three attempts to post their best score. To reach the podium, they needed to put down a flawless top-to-bottom run that balanced execution, technical difficulty and variety across the technical rail section at the top of the course and the three jumps at the bottom.
Twenty-one-year-old Harrington put together a stylish rail section, but couldn’t stick the landing on his triple cork 1620 on jump two.
Barclay, the sixth rider to drop, became the first athlete of the final to land a complete run, scoring 69.40 to settle the early tension.
Run two proved tough for both Kiwis, both posting throwaway scores, with Barclay coming off a rail early on, and the landing on the 1620 once again getting away from Harrington.
Into the third and final run, Barclay would be sitting in fifth place and Harrington in ninth.
Harrington once again opted for a big and bold rail section before setting up for his final attack on the jump line. With the 1800 on lock, he headed into the second jump, this time stomping his landing on the triple cork 1620 and finishing off with a clean 1440 on the third and last jump.
The judges gave a score of 85.15, propelling Harrington into the bronze medal position. With more than half the field still to drop, he theni faced an agonising wait in the finish corral.
Barclay dropped in for his third run but once again, came off a rail too early and would finish eighth overall. As the rest of the field took their final runs, Harrington’s score continued to hold and would end up being the highest of that round.
Harrington is just the fourth Kiwi to win a Winter Olympics medal, following in the footsteps of alpine skier Annelise Coberger in 1992, snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synott in 2018, 2022 and 2026 and fellow freeskier Nico Porteous in 2018 and 2022.
Men’s Freeski Slopestyle medals:
Gold: Birk Ruud (NOR)
Silver: Alex Hall (USA)
Bronze: Luca Harrington (NZL)