体坛英语新闻：Freeski Big Air final sees Norway dominate at world's first permanent jump

BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Norwegian Birk Ruud pulled off a massive final jump of 96.50 points to steal the gold from the grasp of Teal Harle from Canada. Ruud's final jump gave him a total score of 190.25 to edge the Canadian by just 0.25 points.

Harle scored consistently high all three of his runs, with all scoring above 90. Harle got the crowd going with his first jump of 96.00 before closing the show with a 94.00.

However, the 94.00 jump at the close was not enough to overturn the Ruud's final jump of 96.50, which put him into first with eight more skiers to go.

Ruud found himself chasing Harle's 96.00 for the first two jumps and as the final round approached it looked like Harle had already secured the gold but a huge jump at the last with a crisp landing got him the extra half a point.

Trailing in the men's bronze medal place was Jesper Tjader of Sweden who showed consistency across is first two runs (92.25 and 90.75) to finish with a total of 183.00, a single point ahead of the Norwegian Christian Nummedal on 182.00, despite a huge 95.75 final jump at the last.

In the women's Freeski big air final Johanne Killi of Norway dominated the competition scoring 86.75 and 92.75 in her first two runs to give her a whopping 179.00, a full 23.75 points ahead of second-placed Giulia Tanno of Switzerland.

Killi was so far ahead after the second round, she played her final third jump safe such was her position in the field.

Silvia Bertagna of Italy finished in a comfortable third place, ten points clear of fourth.

The Freeski big air finals represented a great success for the Shougang permanent big air facility, the first of its kind in the world. In front of an excited Beijing crowd, the oohs and ahhs filled the air as the athletes pulled off death-defying stunts.

The recently completed Shougang big air jump is hosting its first FIS World Cup event and will be one of the venues for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.