BEIJING (AP) There were no tail grabs for this tiger.

French snowboarder Lucile Lefevre was a crowd pleaser at Big Air Shougang all the same.

The 26-year-old helped Beijing ring in the Year of the Tiger by putting on an orange-and-black big-cat costume during qualifying Monday in womens big air and miming a pair of claws while some 20 feet off the ground.

Lefevre decided a year ago that the Beijing Olympics would be her last snowboarding competition, then hurt her knee during last weeks slopestyle event. The injury prevented her from trying any tricks coming down the 155-foot big air ramp, but she still wanted to participate.

So she borrowed a head-to-toe tiger suit from Swiss snowboarder Nicolas Huber, giving a little flair to her otherwise straight-forward jumps.