She’s kept her word

Hanna Huskova won the second medal for the Belarusian team at the Olympic Games in China

Photo by REUTERS


“We will show and prove that the Belarusian team can achieve better results!” said Hanna Huskova after performing in Mixed Team Aerials at the Olympic Games, where our freestylers took sixth place. She’s kept her word. Despite the highest competition, despite the postponement of the start of the competition, she climbed the Olympic podium again. Hanna has a silver medal!
Competitions in the individual programmes in Zhangjiakou were supposed to start on Sunday. The weather affected the schedule: the organisers decided to postpone the qualification and hold all stages — from the selection to the superfinal — on the same day due to gusty winds and a snowstorm. 
During the qualifications, Hanna Huskova only had one attempt to reach the final. On both attempts in the finals, where there was a selection for the top six, our freestyler chose the jumps that were far from the most difficult ones and advanced to the decisive round from the last, sixth place. Unlike the early stages of the competition, the freestylers have no room for error in the superfinal. There is only one attempt, only one chance to get to the podium and Hanna Huskova took full advantage of it. She was the first to go up the slope. She did an excellent Back Lay-Full-Full and landed confidently. The referees rated the performance of the Belarusian at 107.95 points — this was the best score of the entire competitive day. It remained only to wait for the jumps of the rivals, however, not everyone coped with their task. American Ashley Caldwell, who has performed jumps of the highest complexity more than once this season, failed to land. Chinese Kong Fanyu, like Australian Laura Peel, just hit the ground... Only China’s Xu Mengtao received the most points — 108.61, and the bronze was won by Megan Nick from the USA with a score of 93.76 points.
“When I got to my feet after the decisive jump, I realised that I had done everything in my power. I want to note that the last time I performed this jump was in Pyeongchang, four years ago, that’s why I was overwhelmed with emotions. The decision to perform such a difficult jump was already made here, on the slope, when after the second attempt I realised that I had to go for broke. I’m an extra-class athlete, I have to take risks. I was confident in my abilities. Of course, it was difficult to perform this jump, since it was only in my head. I’m glad it all happened this way today!” said Hanna Huskova after the solemn ceremony of awarding athletes.
Hanna Huskova was only 0.66 points away from gold. Nevertheless, both she and Xu Mengtao are in history after this superfinal. The girls became the first freestylers who twice climbed the Olympic podium in individual competitions: at the last Games in Pyeongchang, Hanna was triumphant, and Xu Mengtao won her first Olympic silver award eight years ago in Sochi — then she lost to our Alla Tsuper. After the end of the competition, the freestylers embraced, and both had tears in their eyes — these were happy tears…

By Tatiana Pastushenko