Blouin wins silver
PYEONGCHANG, KOREA, REPUBLIC OF — A stiff knock to the head nearly derailed Laurie Blouin’s Olympic plans. Wild, wintry, windswept conditions at Phoenix Park didn’t help matters either.
The Canadian snowboarder wasn’t fazed by any of it.
Blouin showed her mettle in the women’s slopestyle Monday and came away with an Olympic silver medal for her efforts.
“I’m really stubborn,” Blouin said. “I was like, ‘I want to compete. I will compete.’”
Arriving at the Pyeongchang Games as a medal contender after winning a world title last year, Blouin took a hard fall last Friday in training. She was transported off the course on a sled and taken to hospital as a precaution.
“I didn’t have any symptoms of a concussion,” Blouin said. “The doctor cleared me. I just hit my head hard.”
Sporting a shiner under her left eye and a gash on her cheek, Blouin was cleared for practice and had a full training session Sunday.
She overcame the high winds Monday to nail a clean second run for 76.33 points.
“Now I’m here in second place, I just don’t believe it,” she said. “It’s a dream come true.”
American Jamie Anderson scored 83.00 points for the gold and Enni Rukajarvi of Finland took bronze with 73.91.
Brooke Voigt of Fort McMurray, Alta., finished 21st and Spencer O’Brien of Courtenay, B.C., was 22nd.
The qualification round was scrubbed a day earlier due to strong winds and the start of competition Monday was delayed for 75 minutes.
When organizers decided to proceed, crashes and aborted runs soon followed. Only a handful of riders completed their full runs and most had to dial things back.
Afterwards, many competitors said they felt the event should have been postponed.
“It’s a really big shame because it was kind of like winning the lottery,” O’Brien said. “You got a run without wind, you really had a chance.
“I unfortunately did not win the lottery today.”
Voigt, meanwhile, described some of the jumps as “terrifying.”
“When it’s gusty like this, sometimes it can just hit you in mid-air and you can feel it,” she said. “Picture holding an umbrella in the wind and that’s your snowboard.”
O’Brien felt the weather was worse Monday than it was a day earlier when the qualifier was cancelled. She said the sport’s governing body, FIS (International Ski Federation), made the decision without input from athletes.