Dunmow skier Kieran Norris claimed a superb top 50 Giant Slalom finish on his debut at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championship and now targets a place at the Winter Olympics.

The 21-year, who represents Ireland internationally as he qualifies through his mother, exclusively spoke to the Broadcast following the championship.

He said: “On the whole, I would say that the world championship was pretty successful.

“I hit a lot of my goals throughout the week and gained a lot of valuable experience.”

The ex-Felsted School pupil had to first compete in Giant Slalom qualifying

He needed to be in the top 25 to guarantee qualification and out of 127 racers qualified in 24th place.

Norris went on to the main event and from his first run was required to finish within the top 60 to get a second run.

A 58th place out of 106 racers saw him take on a second run in tricky conditions with snow falling, there he took 44th place.

“I was mostly just happy to have got down both runs because although I have skied Slalom World Cup races I have never skied Giant Slalom anywhere near the level of world championship.

“Once I’d realised I was in the top 50 I was pretty happy, although I know I could have been a lot faster.

“Going into the event my goal was to finish in the top 25 in the qualification race and get a guaranteed start for the main race, and enjoy the experience so that I can hopefully do better at any other big events in the future.”

Having achieved that goal, Norris’ next is to be at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

He added: “For the rest of the winter I will be training and doing other races to try and bring down my world ranking.

“Next year my target is to go to the Olympics and push to be even more competitive.”