Bolton snowboard star Huw Nightingale is eager to build upon his first experience at the Olympics after bowing out in the quarter-finals.
The 20-year-old raced alongside the eventual gold medal winner Alessandro Haemmerle in the snowboard cross event, who qualified in Nightingale’s heat alongside American Mick Dierdorff.
Nightingale felt in touching distance with the frontrunners at the start but ultimately fell away from the pack as the race developed.
Despite exiting the individual event, he has already set his sights on the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, hoping his new-found experience will help take his snowboarding to the next level.
The Olympic debutant, who lived in Bolton before moving to Austria in 2007, said: “Hopefully for the next Games, I'll go and I've already got one under my belt and I can prepare myself a lot better for the next one.
“This was not what I had planned, but sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t go as well.
“I was too far off the pack, they were drafting each other and I just couldn't get behind them."
The young snowboard star continues his Olympic dream in the mixed team snowboard cross on Saturday beside Charlotte Bankes, who suffered an early exit in the women’s snowboard cross quarter finals yesterday.
Having now graced the biggest sporting stage, Nightingale hopes the pair will race without pressure and bounce back from their individual results.
He said: “We're both going to take it very relaxed and very chilled and hopefully we can do a lot better than the last days.”
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