Koby Cook, 18, from Barnsley, who studies bricklaying and works for his dad’s company, missed out on a medal in the snowboard slopestyle final at the Olympic festival by just 2.50 points.

In a field of 38 competitors, most of whom he had not competed against due to Covid decimating most of the events he could travel to, Cook far exceeded his own expectations.

“I’m very happy with it,” said Cook.

“I wasn’t expecting fifth place at all – I wasn’t even expecting to get to the final, so I’m really happy with it.

“The slopestyle was 60 per cent on rails and 40 per cent on jumps, so I tried going with more of a technical rail line to try and score more points. They were all tricks that I could do fairly consistently and I tried going big on the tricks to score as many points as possible.

“If you don’t land your first run, it does add a bit of pressure going into the second, which is what happened today. But I put my music on to get into a happy, light rhythm and get me in the zone.

“I’ll look to keep improving and keep learning new tricks. The more competitions I go to, the more I can go up the rankings and hopefully when the next Olympics comes around, I’ll be able to qualify for it.”

Barnsley snowboarder Koby Cook just misses out on a medal at the European Youth Olympic Winter festival