Courageous Kirsty Muir’s teenage tricks right through the night gave her Covid-struck and housebound dad Jim plenty to cheer about back in the UK.
While Muir, 17, was landing devilishly difficult jumps to finish fifth in the inaugural women’s Big Air final in Zhangjiakou, 60-year-old oil worker Jim was glued to the screen at 2am in Aberdeen.
Never mind not being able to travel to Beijing due to the virus, the family of Team GB’s youngest Winter Olympian in China were unable to even watch together at home with brother Jimmy also isolating upstairs while negative sister Fiona and mum Kim kept their distance below.
“It was a bit odd as we were all watching in different rooms. Thankfully, Jimmy and I are not seriously ill,” explained Jim.
“The level of excitement was huge obviously – your heart is in your mouth. Not from the injury-side of things but I just wanted her to do her thing and show what she’s made of. Which she did. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Muir had Team GB daring to dream of a first medal of the Games when she laid down a variation of her biggest and best DUB 12 trick for only the second time in competition, scoring 90.25 to temporarily occupy the bronze medal place after the first run.
Following a safer second jump, Muir attempted an audacious Switch Misty 10 for the first time in her life to try and force her way onto the podium after she had been eclipsed by her more experienced rivals.
But after missing her landing at the Big Air Shougang, she watched on in awe as Chinese poster girl Eileen Gu claimed gold in front of a partisan home crowd in what Swiss bronze medallist Mathilde Gremaud described as the “sickest final ever”.
The Scottish youngster will have another chance to medal in her favoured slopestyle event on Sunday and dad Jim admitted it would mean the world if she returned with one hanging around her neck having honed her skills on the dry slope at Aberdeen Snowsports Centre.
He said: “That third jump she really threw caution to the wind and went for it.
“I’ll be honest I was half thinking ‘save yourself for slopestyle’ because that’s her stronger event but no – Kirsty was going for it!
“To win a medal would be immense and absolutely huge. This sport, like any sport, is driven by results and if she could get that result at 17, I think it would change her prospects for all sorts of things.
“Help her progression through the sport, help the sport in general and help Team GB. It means a lot to everyone.”
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