Moguls skier Ikuma Horishima won bronze at the Beijing Games on Saturday as Japan's first medalist of the Winter Olympics in China.
Horishima scored 81.48 points to finish behind gold medalist Walter Wallberg of Sweden's 83.23 points in the men's event at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou.
Defending Olympic champion and hot pre-event favorite Mikael Kingsbury took silver for Canada with 82.18 points.
Horishima's medal is Japan's second in men's freestyle skiing at the Olympics. Daichi Hara won bronze for Japan in the same event four years ago in Pyeongchang.
"I almost blew it and I was on the verge of giving up, but that wouldn't do," Horishima said after getting a little wild on his skis after the first jump.
Either side of his battle with the middle-section bumps, Horishima landed a clean backflip and then a big 1080 before crossing the line in 23.86 seconds.
"I am really relieved because this (medal) was the bare minimum I was aiming for," he said.
It was not all smooth sailing for Horishima, though, as he was forced to ski his way into the finals after bombing in his first qualification run on Thursday. But he made no mistake, a safe 76.19-point run putting him through at the start of the evening's competition.
Hara finished seventh in what he said is to be his final Olympics before focusing full time on a professional keirin cycling career. He failed to qualify to the third final by just 0.10 point.
Fellow Japanese Kosuke Sugimoto also fell at the penultimate hurdle, a 75.73-point run leaving him ninth, while So Matsuda was unable to ski out of the second qualification phase.
