Darcy Sharpe came home with a silver and wasn't far off a bronze.
The 19-year-old snowboarder was generally pleased with his performances at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships in Kreischberg, Austria last month after taking second in big air and fourth in the slopestyle.
Sharpe, who hails from Comox but now calls Whistler home, said via email when reached in Europe that he was glad he "landed clean" in his big air run to secure the silver. He finished 4.25 points behind winner Roope Tonteri of Finland, locking in a final score of 169.50 in the process.
Sharpe is officially a slopestyle athlete, and though he said he did relatively well, he didn't carry over any extra internal goodwill when competing in the big air, which he approached at the time as an extraneous event.
"[A]fter slope going into big air I did not have extra confidence because well, 4th place is not that sweet and definitely not a confidence booster," he noted. "[H]eading into big air I was very mellow with no expectation, I actually only did the big air to fill some spare time I had before my next event in [E]urope. [B]ut things happened to work out well!"
Though Sharpe enjoyed the opportunity to compete on the world stage in front of a slightly larger crowd than usual, he found he prefers to take part in competitions that focus exclusively on snowboarding.
"(Their) focus wasn't just for the snowboarders they have a lot of other dis(c)iplines to take care of," he wrote.
As Sharpe continues the season, he said his big air run would stick in his mind as he collects confidence throughout the year.
"I'm going to go about the rest of my season the same, but this definitely helps me be confident to know I can set down good runs!" Sharpe explained.
