No Medal, But Bickner Records Best Team USA Score In 16 Years

Kevin Bickner may not have made it to the medal stand at the Winter Olympic games, but the 21-year-old Wauconda ski jumper will walk away from Pyeongchang with the best performance by an American man in 16 years. He was the only American on the four-person ski-jumping team to make it to the medal round Saturday at the Olympic Winter Games and ended in 18th place with a total score of 217.4.

Bickner's score was highest by a U.S. man since Alan Alborn tied for 11th in 2002, according to a Team USA press release.

Bickner joined two other local ski jumpers, Casey Larson and Michael Glasder, qualified for this year's Olympic games. The trio trained at Norge Ski Club in Fox River Grove.

Bickner, Glasder and Larson, as well as the fourth member on the U.S. team, Will Rhoads, all qualified for Saturday's finals following a preliminary round in Pyeonchang Thursday. It was the first time since 2002, when the qualification stage was first introduced, that all four U.S. men made it to the ski jumping finals, according to the Northwest Herald.

Bickner placed 25th during the Thursday prelim with a score of 114 and a jump of 98 meters. Glasder finished 40th with a score of 94.6 and a jump of 91.5 meters and Larson finished in 46th place with a final score of 90.9 and a jump of 88 meters, according to officials results on the Team USA website.

All three local ski jumpers spoke during a press conference in Pyeongchang following the competition Thursday and praised Norge Ski Club.

"All of the volunteers that are there and the coaches there, especially Scott Smith, are there to help the sport of ski jumping at help athletes get to that Olympics level," Birkner said at the press conference.

In addition, Larson learned on Thursday that he became the 100,000th male to compete in the Olympic games. Larson, who finished 46th in the qualifying round, told reporters he had just learned of the milestone on the day it was announced, according to the Team USA website.

Larson was one of the final athletes to qualify for Team USA and earned his spot based on his results on the world cup and Continental Cup circuits, according to a Team USA press release.

Anders Haugen is the only U.S. ski jumper to medal at the Winter Olympics, according to the Team USA news release. But, he was originally credited with only a fourth-place finish following the 1924 Olympic games. Fifty years later, he learned his total points were calculated incorrectly and he actually finished in third. In 1974, he received a bronze medal at a special ceremony.

Photo credit: Kevin Bickner of the U.S. soars through the air during his first trial jump at the Ski Flying World Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

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