The haka is becoming a regular thing in Italy, with Luca Harrington honoured after becoming New Zealand’s latest Winter Olympic medallist.
Harrington claimed bronze in the freeski slopestyle final to win the nation’s second medal in as many days following Zoi Sadowski-Synnott’s silver medal yesterday in Big Air.
Members and staff of the New Zealand Olympic team performed a haka at the Livigno Snow Park to recognise the 21-year-old’s achievement – becoming just the fourth Kiwi to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
“That was the most touching moment I’ve ever had. It’s such an honour to be part of the New Zealand team and to be honoured with that haka meant everything to me. I’ve seen it happen before and it’s such an emotional connect for our family. That really meant a lot,” Harrington told Sky Sport.
Following two of the three runs, it didn’t look like it was going to happen for Harrington, who celebrates his 22nd birthday next week. He failed to land clean runs in tricky conditions including a heavy crash landing to end his second run leaving him 11th in the 12-man field.
But he got back up and stuck to his plan to give everything, resulting in a bronze-medal score of 85.15 after cleanly pulling off a switch right triple on the final jump.
“No day ever goes perfect. I learned a lot about how much passion I have to keep my head up and get back into that third run. And I think that’s what led me to keep on going and landing that final run,” Harrington told Sky Sport.
Norway’s Birk Ruud won gold with defending champion Alex Hall, of the USA, taking silver, just 0.50 points ahead of the Kiwi.
Harrington said he had the self-belief despite failing to complete a clean run on his first two attempts.
“I can’t even describe it. This has been a childhood dream. I didn’t think I was going to make it after those first two runs. We didn’t have the best light out there. But I stood at the top of that last run and put a smile on my face and just embraced what an honour it was to be standing up there with fellow athletes and teammate Ben [Barclay],” Harrington told Sky Sport.
“I just didn’t want to play it safe. I wanted to leave it all out there on the course. I did that. To believe I’m wearing an Olympic bronze medal right now is pretty surreal.”
It is the third straight Winter Olympics that New Zealand has claimed multiple medals, after Sadowski-Synnott took silver yesterday in Big Air.
Harrington was “freaking out” after two failures to open the competition.
“It was a tough moment for me. For me, it’s pretty rare I don’t land two runs so that was definitely a shock. Luckily, we have a third run here at the Olympics. I was definitely freaking out a bit. I didn’t know what to do, whether to change the plan or to keep it going. I had that time to grieve for a moment and get back into the zone. Managed to pull it off.
“Today was a battle, we didn’t get perfect conditions but that’s part of our sport – we had to battle through that. I was feeling a lot of pressure, a lot of crazy emotions going on being here at the Olympics – being in the finals and wanting to do everyone proud. I did not land my first two runs which made that ever tougher – but on that final run, took a step back, embraced the moment and managed to gain that confidence and go through my full run a clean. I’m extremely proud of that,” he said.
Teammate Ben Barclay opened with a strong 69.40 but came off the rails early on his second and third attempts to finish eighth.
Both Harrington and Barclay will return to action for the Big Air qualifying on Monday.