Matéo Jeannesson pushed through the pain to complete his Olympic debut after injury almost caused him to pull out of competition.
The 21-year-old saw a recurring injury flare up in his heel the morning of his second chance at qualification for the men's moguls finals in Livigno.
He eventually finished 30th after two runs, with a best score of 56.46 not enough to see him through to the afternoon's finals.
With injury playing the enemy at the worst possible moment, it was never going to be the Olympic run that Jeannesson knows he is capable of.
"It was rough this whole morning," he said.
"I've got this injury on my heel and this morning it was sore and I just was struggling to get over the pain and I thought at one point I might just not compete.
"But I wanted to just go up there, try to put a run down and get the experience from it so at least I learned quite a bit.
"[The score] doesn't matter, this is not you know what I'm capable of, I'm capable of a lot better so it is what it is."
The Brit had sent it in his first qualification round, but was unable to recover from a dodgy landing on the first jump and was forced to ski out of the course.
It left him sat in 28th position with a score of 44.64 which he needed to up if he was to qualify for the final in the next group of athletes.
But injury was too large for Jeannesson and an improved score in his second run, was more of a victory for pushing through.
"I basically injured my heel in October just skiing on icy conditions and I then took quite a lot of time off," he added.
"I didn't compete and tried to be rested for the Olympics and yeah, basically I had a little fracture in my heel.
"It has not fully healed but it was feeling much better the first few days here and then today was a bit rough and you know mentally it was quite hard to push myself to the max."
Jeannesson is scheduled to be back in action in the dual moguls on Sunday 15 February, but with injury biting back, his coach and he will make the decision closer to the time.
"We'll have to see because the duels are pretty violent," he said.
"I mean if it was to snow I should be fine you know, when the bumps are a bit softer it would help me a lot so we'll see how it goes."
Sportsbeat 2026