Career-best result of fifth for Bilous

Wanaka freeskier Finn Bilous in action at the slopestyle world cup event in Seiser Alm, Italy, at...
Wanaka freeskier Finn Bilous in action at the slopestyle world cup event in Seiser Alm, Italy, at the weekend. PHOTO: MATEUSZ KIELPINSKI
NAKA freeskier Finn Bilous achieved a career-best result with a fifth-place finish at the Slopestyle World Cup in Seiser Alm, Italy, over the weekend.

``Following on from the Olympics in February, I felt I still had more gas in the tank for the competition season, so I decided to do a couple more events and try to bank some good results,'' Bilous said.

The Wanaka 18-year-old was disappointed to miss out on the Olympic finals in PyeongChang by just one place.

``Going into this event, I wanted to give it my all and try to land my best run possible, leaving it all on the hill.''

Bilous stuck to his plan and emerged as the top qualifier in his heat last week

``My training went well and I felt good going into qualifications. I had a few bobbles on my first run so looked to improve on my second run. I landed it all clean and got a 91.80 which I was super pumped about and that made me feel confident going into finals.''

Bilous decided to use the same run for the 16-man final but struggled for speed on the jumps with fresh snow having fallen overnight and warm temperatures adding to the challenge.

``I landed my first run well and scored an 88.40 placing me in second after run one. I went to change up my grabs on the second run. However, [I] lacked speed into the second jump, coming up short and crashing my second run.''

Bilous' first run score was enough for fifth, his best result at a world cup and one to be proud of.

``All in all, I was happy with how today went and how I skied. This was the final world cup of the season and my best world cup result yet so I'm stoked.''

American Nick Goepper took victory in the final FIS freeski world cup event of 2017-18 in Seiser Alm.

Andri Ragettli, of Switzerland, who ended the competition in second place with 91.20 points, finished atop the overall rankings for the season.

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