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Visit insidehalton.com for m ore coverage OLYMPICS 'I know I have what it takes,' McEachran says Olympic athletes, 6th-place finish provide motivation for Oakville skier H ERB GARBUTT hga rb utt@b u rl i ngto n post, co m Evan McEachran stood at the bottom of the slope- style course pacing back and forth. It was the Olym­ pics, so he was supposed to be nervous, right? Except this was the first time he'd felt this way. He didn't feel it when he ar­ rived in South Korea. He'd expected everything to be so much bigger, the de­ mands to be so much greater, the pressure to be amplified. But they weren't. He might have felt it when he stood at the top of the course about to start his first qualifying run. But he didn't. He was just looking forward to skiing and testing himself on "by far the best course I've been on in my life." It wasn't until his last qualifying run was over that the nerves kicked in. With 12 spots up for grabs in the final, he stood in 10th place with 16 more ski­ ers to come. Now he could only wait to see whether he would Slopestyle skier Evan McEachran. E va n M c E a c h ra n p h o to ski again or whether his Olympics were over. "That's the worst feel­ ing of the competition," the Oakville skier said. "When you drop into a run, you can focus on skiing, but once you're finished, there's nothing you can do. It's out of your control." Now McEachran saw why the Olympics were different than other com­ petitions. His 87.60 was better than the score he'd won a World Cup silver medal with earlier in the season. "It was wild. Everyone was going all in," he said. "Everyone wanted it that much more because it was the Olympics. They were all bringing their A1 runs in qualifying." With eight days of Olympic competition after his event, McEachran had the opportunity to watch a variety of athletes pushing their limits. He went to a couple of hockey games, watched moguls and snowboarding and visited the sliding cen­ tre, where he gained an ap­ preciation for the bobsled- ders. "I didn't know how ter­ rifying that is," he said. "You watch these guys running and pushing off and then they jump in this bullet-shaped tube and fly like 130 km /h down the track. That's pretty men­ tal. I have a lot of respect for those guys." His favourite part of the experience was getting to know the athletes from the different sports. "There are so many in­ sanely talented athletes," he said. "It motivates you that much more to go back in four years." The slopestyle final would also provide McEa­ chran with some inspira­ tion. Qualifying 11th he was the second skier on the course in the final and the first to complete a run. He delivered a unique and highly technical rail sec­ tion and nailed all three of his jumps. "I did the run I dreamed of doing, there were a cou­ ple of tiny, tiny mistakes I knew I could clean up," he said of the run that earned him an 89.40 and had him sitting in second place af­ ter the first of three runs. His next two runs would be cut short, catch­ ing a ski on a rail on a diffi­ cult trick on the second run and sliding off a rail a little early on his last run, ending his chances of im­ proving his score. "I would have loved to have had that (first) run as my second or third," he said. "Being the second skier in, (judges) tend to score higher later. You get the added excitement as everything builds and it affects everyone, the ski­ ers, the crowd, even the judges." Finishing sixth and just three points off the podi­ um, McEachran knows a medal was a possibility. "It's definitely a bitter­ sweet place to finish, espe­ cially going and watching the medal ceremonies," the 20-year-old said. "I know I have what it takes and I'm going to be around for a while." Westlake chases 3rd Paralympic medal H ERB GARBUTT hga rb utt@b u rl i ngto n post, co m Greg Westlake will be playing for his third Pa­ ralympic medal when the puck drops on the Pa­ ralympics para (sledge) hockey tournam ent in Pyeongchang, South Ko­ rea, Saturday. The Canadian captain previously won gold with Canada in his Paralym ­ pic debut in Torino in 2006. After finishing fourth in Vancouver in 2010, Westlake and the Canadian squad re ­ turned to the podium in Sochi in 2014, claiming the bronze medal. The United States, the gold medallist at each of the past two Paralym ­ pics, will be the biggest obstacle in Canada's path. The teams have met in each of the last three world champion­ ship finals, with Canada defeating the U.S. at last year's worlds in Pyeong­ chang. Canada plays its first game on Saturday, March 10 against Swe­ den. It wraps up round- robin play with games against Italy on Sunday, March 11 and Norway Monday, March 12. The semifinals will be played Thursday, March 15, fol­ lowed by the medal games (bronze) on Satur­ day, March 15 and (gold) Sunday, March 18. 18 | O akville Beaver | Thursday, M arch 8,2018 insidehalton.com