Great Britain's Woods falls agonisingly short in ski slopestyle

Great Britain’s James Woods suffered whiplash and needed stitches after a series of spectacular performances in the ski slopestyle – but suffered more agony when he missed out on bronze at the death.

Woods, 26, was in third with only five skiers remaining in the final and looked set to join Izzy Atkin in securing a second British ski medal in Pyeongchang only for the American Nick Goepper to pip him on his final run.

The Norwegian Osystein Braaten won with a first-run score of 95.00 while Nick Goepper took silver and Canadian Alex Beaulieu-Marchand bronze, 1.4 points ahead of Woods.

“Fourth place is minging, it’s so devastating,” Woods said. “And I’ve got some mega whiplash coming on from that first hit and I’ve get some stitches in my chin. I’ve got to be disappointed with coming fourth.”

Had he finished in the top three it would have secured Britain’s highest medal tally at a Winter Games, beating the four medals won in 1924 and 2014.

The Briton looked set for a high score on his first run, only to fall on the final jump, but held third place after run two with an impressive score of 91.00. But he was left ruing a minor mistake when he missed a rail at the top of his third run – which eventually scored 90.0 – which he believes would have won him a medal.

“I can put my hand on my heart and say that that run, totally clean, definitely could have won,” Woods said. “It’s devastating to miss out on a medal but the skiing was great and I have no shame in saying that I went for a run that I thought could win this.

“But everyone is so good that you can’t predict a thing. But if you told me I’d be relatively healthy and proud of myself at the end of this and I’d take that.”

Woods also praised the performance of Izzy Atkin, Britain’s 19-year-old star, who took bronze in the ladies’ slopestyle yesterday, as well as Katie Summerhayes, who returned from a serious ankle injury to make the final.

“I was so proud of Izzy and Katie,” he said. “They did amazing. Izzy skied out of her skin and came away with some hardware and that says enough. That gives everyone in the GP Parks and Pipe system a good name, and Izzy a good bit of glory.

“It would definitely be a harder sell if Izzy hadn’t have medalled and I came fourth. It’s all good.”

Having finished fifth in Sochi and now fourth in Pyeongchang, Woods was asked whether he would be back in four years’ time. “I’ll ski forever baby,” he replied.