‘Gutted’ Summerhayes vows to return with her sister in 2018

Her emotions underlined how much she had expected of herself going into the skiing slopestyle in Sochi, despite only being 18 and having spent much of the last year recovering from knee surgery.

The Sheffield teenager finished seventh in the final after qualifiying in third with two impressive runs.

Immediately afterwards, a tearful Summerhayes said: “I’m gutted, I’m really gutted.”

But the fact she was able to participate at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park was a success in itself, given she twice went under the knife in the last two years and she learned the sport on the dry ski slopes near her home in Sheffield.

She bounced back from the injury by earning a silver medal in a World Cup event for the second time last month and a top-10 finish on Tuesday should give her satisfaction in the long run. “It’s been extremely tough, actually, but my whole goal was to get to the final of the Olympics,” she said.

“Everyone told me that I couldn’t do it, I just proved them wrong. That was one of the big things. So many people on the way were like ‘it’s going to be tough’, but I’m here.”

She insists she will be back, and may not be the only Summerhayes there, with younger sister Molly also keen on making it to Pyeongchang in 2018.

“That’s our plan – it would be amazing,” said the elder Summerhayes.

“We haven’t actually skied together for a while because of my injury, but when we grew up we had so much fun skiing.”

Summerhayes, right, appeared to be on course for Britain’s second medal of the Games – following Jenny Jones’s historic bronze in the snowboard equivalent on Sunday – after finishing third in the morning’s qualifiers.

But in the afternoon, the 18-year-old fell over after failing to land her first jump, while she made several smaller errors second time around.

Her score of 70.60 – in contrast to her qualifying runs of 81.40 and 84.00 – was only good enough for seventh.

There were some suggestions the course contributed to her first fall, with the warmer weather making it a little slushy, but the 18-year-old stressed that she is used to those conditions.

“It was something to be conscious about, but it wasn’t really a problem,” she said.

“You had to go a little bit faster but I was alright.”

Summerhayes admitted her fall in her first run shook her confidence, but was more irked by not landing a trick properly.

“I had much more pressure on my second run,” she said.

“I was a bit annoyed as well because every time I’ve done that trick – the switch nine (a trick that involves two and a half spins with the competitor landing backwards) – I’ve landed it.”

Dara Howell was in a class of her own as she won the gold medal.

American Devin Logan earned silver and another Canadian Lamarre took bronze.

Leeds-born snowboarder Dom Harington was also left frustrated after his early exit from the halfpipe competition.

The 29-year-old fell in both of his runs and produced a best score of just 37.25.

The unseasonably warm temperatures caused the halfpipe to become rutted, but Harington said: “It is the same for everyone so it is a bit bumpy because it is warm, but the pipe is still good.

“On the first run I was really nervous and I messed up from the first hit – my legs were like jelly.”

Switzerland’s Iouri Podladtchikov won gold.

Andrew Musgrave made his mark in the mountains, becoming the first British cross-country skier to reach the quarter-finals of an Olympic men’s sprint, but there was no consoling him after he missed out on the semi-finals.

The 23-year-old Scot finished 27th in the opening time trial, enough to earn a place in the knockout stages, and his position also represented the highest placing achieved by a British cross-country skier at any Games, eclipsing Tom Cairney’s 28th place in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956.

“I had a bad day,” he said.

Stacey Kemp and David King are out of the figure skating competition after they failed to make the cut. Kemp fell during the pairs short programme.