Matteo Rizzo won a place at the Olympics for Italy in the men’s individual figure skating event for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games after securing fourth place at the 49th Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany.

At the fifth event of this season’s ISU Challenger Series, the 19-year-old IceLab member from Milan secured one of the last six spots available for the Olympics, which are due to be held in South Korea in February.

After placing fifth in the free skate programme with 72.97 points (39.18 in the technical element score and 33.79 in the programme components score), Rizzo achieved a total of 150.30 points (79.30 and 71) in his second performance of the day this evening, regaining a position and finishing with 223.27 overall in the competition, which was won by Belgium’s Hendrickx with 253.06 points, ahead of the USA’s Johnson and Sweden’s Majorov.

This marks the seventh Italian figure skater to secure a spot in the Olympics, after two took spots in the women’s individual event, two in the pairs figure skating and two in ice dancing.