Winter Olympics 2026: Luca Harrington misses out on medal in big air

New Zealand freeskier Luca Harrington competes in run one of the men's big air qualification at Livigno Air Park. Photo / Getty Images

Kiwi bronze medallist Luca Harrington has fallen short of adding a second medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics after finishing sixth in what he called the craziest big air final he’s ever seen.

In a remarkable high-scoring contest, Norway’s Tormod Frostad secured gold with the final jump of the night to pip American Mac Forehand. Austria’s Matej Svancer finished in bronze.

Frostad produced the jump of the night on his third and final attempt to score a 98.50 and finish on 195.50 after a 97.00 on his second run. That came just moments after Forehand scored a 98.25 on his last jump to finish on 193.25.

Harrington was in the mix early on with a switch right triple double grab which scored a 94.00, leaving him in fourth. But he couldn’t stick a clean landing on his final two runs, eventually finishing sixth with a total of 160.50.

It finishes a strong campaign for the Kiwi at his first Winter Olympics, in which he became the fifth New Zealander to win a medal with bronze in the slopestyle final.

“Nobody can take away from the fact that that was one of the craziest big air finals I’ve ever seen,” Harrington said.

“Even the qualifications were crazy high so I knew something big was going to be coming tonight. Proud of everyone, glad we’re all safe, we’re all healthy. Huge shoutout to Mac, Tormod and Matej, they skied unbelievable. Of course I wanted to ski a little better and be up on the steps with those guys, it’s how it goes and I’m still proud of my efforts.

The final was delayed because of heavy snow with sleet falling throughout the competition.

“A whirlwind of events going on there. First of all we got delayed, so that was the first step into the journey. Then we had a headwind in training, nobody was clearing the jumps and then it turned into a full-on blizzard, then all of a sudden we had sleet again. It’s part of our sport and things can change and we’ve got to be able to adapt to that. I’m stoked we got to put on a pretty cool show today,” Harrington said.

“Every time there’s a big air event someone pulls out something new. The judging system rewards one thing at one point and rewards another thing at another point. It’s always a crazy journey but awesome to be part of it and exploring new options to be trying new things and seeing what pushes the sport the most. That was a really exciting event to see what’s getting rewarded now and we’re going to see a lot more people stepping in that direction,” he added.

Harrington, who turns 22 tomorrow, said he will remain in the Olympic village and support his older brother Ben who is competing in the freestyle skiing halfpipe with teammates Fin Melville Ives, Gustav Legnavsky and Luke Harrold starting tomorrow night NZT.

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