'Shred gods were with me': Valentino Guseli's wild day was iced after dad convinced him to 'send it'

LIVIGNO: Ask Val Guseli to explain one of the wildest days of his career and he replies matter-of-factly: "The shred gods were with me tonight."

It's a very 20-year-old snowboarder way to sum up an extraordinary confluence of events that landed the Australian young gun into the big air final on a day when he wasn't even supposed to be competing.

When Guseli woke up in Livigno on Thursday morning, he knew he had some kind of chance of getting a late call up, due to his standing as the first alternate and a nasty practice crash that put Canadian star Mark McMorris in doubt.

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But it wasn't until about 4pm local time - three-and-a-half hours before the competition was due to start - that Guseli officially got the nod, thrusting him into a 30-man battle for 12 spots in the final.

At that point, the opportunity to compete was a win but a place in the final appeared a distant hope given Guseli had only had eight practice runs on the Livigno course, significantly less than many of his opponents.

Sitting in 15th spot after his first two runs, Guseli was having a ball, cartwheel celebrations and all, but was up against it to get through, needing a massive score from his final run to leap into the top dozen and stay there.

At that point even he didn't know if he was up for attempting a gnarly enough trick to get him the score of around 90 that he needed.

He had almost convinced himself to stay in self-preservation mode and bubble wrap himself for the halfpipe, which is his strongest event.

But then a thought struck him: "It's the Olympics, man," and as he stood at the top of the run he committed to a trick he had only once before landed in competition - roughly 18 months ago and, crucially, before he tore his ACL.

That trick? The high degree of difficulty, high scoring switch backside 1980 tailgrab.

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"Up until I got into the drop-in I was planning to do an 18 instead of a 19," Guseli said.

"Me and my dad (Rick) had spoken, he's my coach, my dad's my coach for clarity, and we were talking about it and he was like 'Dude, you might have to go the 19 to get the score', and I was like 'Dude, I don't know if it's worth it', I didn't say this to him, but what I thought was 'I'm not going to go and try something like a Hail Mary that I could get destroyed on and miss out on halfpipe'.

"I thought that for a little bit, but then I thought 'it's the Olympics, man', so I decided, I don't know the exact point I decided to send the 19 but once I decided I was like, 'let's go' and I ended up finding flow state pretty easily when I dropped in - snapped it, grabbed, came around and saw the landing, stomped it - it all happened way too easily when I dropped in.

"I hope that doesn't sound arrogant but it's what happens in sport sometimes, things just happen for you. A lot of work accumulates to a certain moment and, I don't know, it felt like a lot of hard work paid off in that moment."

A moment of flow state, with the celebration to match, has landed Guseli in the final as the 12th placed qualifier, but don't let that fool you, having left the self-preservation mode behind he showed with his third run that he is a genuine medal contender. His 91.50 for that run was bettered by only one competitor in the qualifiers.

"It's amazing. I got the start in big air, I'm definitely in for half pipe, we'll see what happens with slope style, I'd love to be in that too," he said, with the possibility now live that McMorris will also withdraw from slope style with Guseli again poised to be the beneficiary as the first alternate.

"But for now I'm just going to try to make the best of what I've got and I'm really hoping for a good performance on Saturday night (local time).

"I'm going to do everything I can to put on a good performance for everyone watching at home and do the best riding I can."

Guseli will go for gold in the big air from 5.30am Sunday (AEDT).