Stylish Su to shoot for perfect run in Big Air final

Already an Olympic medalist in his Games debut at home, Su Yiming has nothing to prove, but nevertheless the snowboarding prodigy is challenging himself to stomp a perfect run at the Big Air final on Tuesday.

Su, who won a silver medal in slopestyle at the Beijing Winter Olympics last week, rode through Monday's Big Air qualifying rounds with ease to stay on course for delivering a second medal, perhaps a gold, in the final at the Shougang Industrial Park.

"Tomorrow will be a different ride where everybody will bring out their best for sure. My plan is to land my most difficult run as perfectly as I can to earn the highest possible points," Su said after advancing into the final with a combined score of 155.25 points from his first two qualifying runs on Monday.

"I didn't land my third run cleanly today. I will figure out what went wrong tonight and try to stomp the tricks that I want to do in tomorrow's final," said the 17-year-old rider, who won China's first men's snowboarding Olympic medal with his silver on Feb 7.

The 12 finalists for the Big Air showdown include Canadian great Max Parrot, the winner in slopestyle, and his bronze-winning compatriot Mark McMorris, Su's snowboarding idol growing up.

"I'm happy with what I did, happy to get some landed runs down and happy to have a berth into the finals, because at the end of the day, tomorrow is a completely new contest, so I look forward to it," said McMorris, who can become the first snowboarder in history to win four Olympic medals by finishing on the podium on Tuesday.

Known for his stylish spinning tricks, Su landed a backside 1800 trick on his first attempt to register the highest score of 92.5 points in a single run among all qualifiers on Monday, but he didn't maintain the same difficulty in his following two runs.

The teenage sensation revealed that he will need to at least land a higher 1980 trick in the final to stay competitive for a gold finish.

"The most important thing is to enjoy the Games for the first time held at home," he said. "I am always the happiest whenever I ride on my board. Hopefully, I will make a run that I'm happy with tomorrow."