A team USA athlete narrowly avoided a horrendous accident as he performed his ski jump on Thursday.
Ben Loomis competed in the Nordic Combined Team Sprint on Thursday alongside teammate Niclas Malacinski.
The event includes both ski jumping and cross-country and the US ultimately finished seventh overall. In his ski jump, Loomis recorded a distance of 116 metres - with Malacinski producing a distance of 120 metres.
But Loomis, in his third Olympics, was involved in a near-frightening incident during the aforementioned jump. Because of the blizzard conditions, staff used snow blowers to clear it on the slope.
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Yet one of the many officials on the side made a near costly mistake as he was still blowing snow by the time Loomis came down the descending hill.
In frightening footage which was captured on the broadcast, Loomis, who clocked a speed of 96.3km per hour, appeared to make contact with the leaf blower in terrifying scenes.
On commentary for TNT Sports, a concerned Jernej Damjan said "Did you see the blower?"
"That was really close. Did he hit it or did he move away?".
Guy McCrea added: "The way he's shaking his head, I think he did touch it!"
The 27-year-old somehow escaped serious injury and refrained from retaking his jump, with no official appeal from the US camp to the judges.
Loomis spoke to NRK after the incident and admitted he got off lightly and it would have been bad news if he was hit in the face. Instead, Loomis was caught on the shoulder.
"I've never experienced anything like this," the former US soldier told NRK in the aftermath of the incident.
"Fortunately, it happened at the top, so I just tried to convince myself to make a good jump.
"When I let go of the boom, I wondered if he would move. It didn't hurt, but it left a mark on the suit. Luckily it only hit my shoulder. If it had hit me in the face, it would have been a completely different story."
A full apology was provided by the individual who made the mistake, with ompetition director Lasse Ottesen calling the incident "regrettable".
"It was good that nothing more happened, but it should not happen," he said.
"The person has apologized to the jury and FIS [International Ski and Snowboard Federation] apologises to the USA."
Norway's team of Andreas Skoglund and Jens Luras Oftebro took the gold medal, with Finland and Austria taking silver and bronze respectively.
Topics: United States, Olympics
Josh Lawless