AFTER HIS FIRST run in the men’s ski halfpipe this morning, Ireland’s Brendan Newby sat just two places outside the qualification places for the final thanks to a season-high score of 53.80.
However, a fall on his second run put paid to the Cork-born skier’s chances of making Thursday’s final and, in the end, the 21-year-old had to settle for 22nd place.
Known as Bubba, Newby’s family moved to Utah when he was still a child but he chose to represent Ireland at the ski halfpipe after its introduction as an Olympic event at Sochi 2014.
All four US competitors — including the defending champion David Wise — qualified for the 12-man final while New Zealand brothers Byron and Beau-James Wells both advanced too.
“It’s insane to be Ireland’s first ever freestyle skier and first ever half-piper,” Newby said after the event.
“I didn’t think that would ever happen. After my run I had a few kids message me on Instagram, now that it has happened I don’t want to be the last [Irish] freestyle skier.
“I want to get more people on the team, I want to get more people skiing for Ireland and get more people involved in what I love. This is the most fun thing you could ever do.
“I hope I made it look like I was having a good time because I was.
This has been unreal. For the rest of my life I’m an Olympian. That’s something I’ve wanted my entire life so for it to actually happen – I can’t even put it into words. On the second run I just popped a little too hard.
“If you pop too hard on a half-pipe you kind of fall out of the sky pretty far and I just couldn’t hold onto it. My hips were behind my feet [on landing] and when you’re there it’s a pretty tough position to get out,” he explained.
My first run was good. I was just going out there fired up to go big and it worked. I had one more trick that I wanted to put down in my second run.
“It was just about improving. I didn’t even know what place I was after the first run, I’ve only just found that out,” he admitted.
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Sounds worrying
@geraldo: he has a point about thr penalty count. When your winning handy enough there’s no excuse to give away penalties.
Hard to stay disciplined and motivated if you are winning by 50pts. The big problem is the overlap with international windows. It effectively means each club has to have two teams. If there were fewer games it would be more competitive. A pool or conference system is the only way to go without asking unions to reduce the number of teams they have.
@Rudiger McMonihan: few clubs lose a whole team to the international windows. Maybe one in each country would lose 15. I think a 2 division league might work but as soon as the SA teams come in it would be them and the 3 Irish sides. So maybe not.
@Chris Mc: I think this year you need to include all four provinces. If Connacht had played all their games they would be second in conference B.
@Chris Mc: no union will ever have relagation, would the FIR, WRU or IRFU risk one or more of their professional teams being 2nd division teams? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Benetton lose as many players as Leinster to international call ups and have nowhere near the same resources. Its little surprise Leinster are walking it against those teams.
@Rudiger McMonihan: think we touched on this before, clubs need the 10/11 home games. The proposed new rugby calendar if it gets agreed will sort it out. With no overlap durning internationals. It has a 29/30 week club season, but I think it would be the end of the HCup. As the French Top 14 takes 29 weeks and if given the choice between changing their league system or leaving the HCup the French would leave the HCup. The Pro 16 and English Prem would have maybe 5 weeks that they could fit a new European rugby cup in (Current HCup, takes 9 weeks), but no way can the French fit in a 29 round league and 9 round HCup in 30 weeks, and if there are no French is it really worth it?
@Kingshu: yeah I said they need to reduce the number of club games. Pre-covid Super rugby teams played far fewer games (16 + 3 knock outs). The best players go on to play internationals after (14 in a normal year). Then the rest play in the mitre cup (10 + 2 KO’s). So everyone gets game time, the calendar is more coherent and the games are more competitive. The way our calendar is set up is ridiculous. There is so much overlap between pro14, Heineken cup and internationals. We bounce between the 3 all year too. Teams dont get enough time together to build momentum and their position on the table is often down to how well their 3rd or 4th choice player is.
@Rudiger McMonihan: The New global calendar proposal
Is
Autumn internationals: October-November
Club and European games: December-July with a 7 week break for
Six Nations: April-May and same time the Rugby Championship: April-May. Players get a break from end of July to start of Oct.
Thats a 30 week club season with 7 week break with no games played durning 6 nations/rugbt championship. I just can’t see the Top 14 fitting their league and Hcup into that window.
@Con Cussed: have they not lost 2 games so far. They are a bit off the top 3 to be fair.
@Kingshu: I am with you on this. The system that has been cobbled together over the years has suited the Irish set-up more than anyone else; its deficiencies are increasingly obvious but it is hard to see that there will be changes that will be beneficial in the round.
The underlying problem is that there are only 2 countries – England and France – with the resources to support a domestic professional ‘club’ set-up. The rest have to rely on subsidies from the mens’ senior international game and an artificial cobbled-together league combining the remaining countries.
For us the real focus of the ‘club’ game is the Heineken Cup, but this can only really exist if the English and French clubs want it to, and only a minority of them are really committed