Kiwi Tiarn Collins is preparing for his second lot of Winter Olympic competition, with snowboard big air qualification to be held on January 14th.
The 22-year-old missed out on making the finals in slopestyle earlier this week and now has his sights set on an improved showing in the big air
“The venue looks unreal, it’s pretty exciting, it’s gonna be a big show,” said Collins.
“We saw a bunch of runs in the snowboard slopestyle that have never been done before so the big air is gonna be insane, I can’t wait.”
Collins competed at the Shougang Big Air venue in 2019 and has fond memories of the iconic man-made jump.
“I had a competition there two years ago and it was pretty fun. The jump is such a crazy setup at night they have it all lit up, it’s a great spot.”
He says big air is relatively simple, the general idea is just to go bigger and do more rotations than anyone else.
“We do three runs and your best two runs get combined to give you an overall score for the day. Then there’s other little rules like you have to spin in different directions, so you need one spinning left and one spinning right for your two scores.”
Collins says no matter the result, he’s loved the Winter Olympic environment and being a part of the New Zealand Team.
“It’s been awesome here, I’ve been meeting some great people and I’m just stoked to be here competing for New Zealand at the Winter Olympics.”
2 years ago
Tiarn Collins