I went straight from Park
 City, Utah to Lillehammer, 
Norway on the 7th of 
February for one of the best
 trips of my life. The entire
 Olympic experience was
 really cool and definitely
motivated me even more to
 get selected for the next Winter Olympic Games in 2018.

My first event was the Halfpipe event up in Oslo. It was a 3 run straight final. My runs went to plan and I was happy with how I skied. It was sick to battle it out with my good friend Birk Irving from America in the last run. He landed a
really good run and I knew I was
 going to have to ski my best to beat his score. It came 
down to the little things like 
grabs/tweaks at the end of the
 day, as I was only 0.80 off 
winning the event. I was super
 thankful to land my runs and to
 end up on the podium getting New Zealand’s first Youth Olympic Medal and second Winter Olympic Medal ever.

Read the Press release on Finn’s halfpipe exploits.

The ski and snowboard team went back to Lillehammer that night after the Halfpipe event to return to the village. I had a few days back in the village before my second event got underway. It was really fun to cruise around the village meeting new people and trying out different sports that were set up for the athletes to try.

The slopestyle event got underway up at Hafjell Ski Resort. The course was a lot smaller than what we had anticipated, making it hard to pull out our best tricks in the jump section. After a couple training days in average weather we put together some runs that could work on the course. I was able to put down my first run for a score of 86.00. After the first runs I was sitting in second place. I was unable to improve my score on my second run but
 my first run score was good
 enough to hold up in second 
until the very last rider who got a score of 87.40, bumping me 
into third place. To end up on 
the podium again was 
incredible and get another 
medal for New Zealand was 
really special. The amount of
 support I had throughout the games from people back home was crazy and meant a lot.

Read the Press Release on Finn’s second medal for NZ.

After the games finished I 
headed off to Italy for a two-
day Europa Cup slopestyle 
competition. The course was 
really good compared to the Youth Olympics and I was able 
to put down some of my best 
slopestyle runs ever. I put 
down both way double cork 1080’s for the first time in competition, which I was stoked about and placed a 5th on the first day and a 1st on the second day by improving my rail tricks. I was awarded with a cheeseboard and a cape haha.

I then went to Switzerland for the Silvaplana World Cup with the New Zealand Team. The weather was very challenging in training, making it hard to put together full runs. On my first run I put down an extremely mellow safety run as I was struggling to make speed for the last 
jump. I intended to step it up on my 
second run incorporating the both way double corks but I unfortunately fell off
 the first rail early, resulting in a bad
 score. I’m still grateful I got to do the
 event but I’m gutted on how it went for
 me. You win some, you lose some I guess…

I’m now back in Breckenridge, Colorado enjoying some free time skiing in the spring slush. The Youth Olympic Games was my pinnacle event for this season so I was pumped that the work I put in at the start of the season paid off and I was able achieve the results I wanted. This trip wouldn’t have been possible without your help and I would like to say a massive thanks for that!

Follow Finn online:
Facebook: Finn Bilous

Instagram: @finnbilous

Twitter: @FinnBilous