Kiwi snowboarder has a good shot at medal
Wanaka teenager Zoi SadowskiSynnott has an outside shot at a medal, in the Winter Olympic Games’ women’s snowboard big air final.
The 16-year-old produced a superb second run of 92.00, to briefly take the lead in qualifying. Twelve athletes eventually progressed to the final in PyeonChang, with SadowskiSynnott qualifying fifth.
After a score of 72.25 for her first run, Sadowski-Synnott wowed the judges second time around. A switch backside 900 was among the secondrun highlights and she showed her delight by punching the air once the scores were in.
Top qualifier ended up being Anna Gasser of Austria, who really made a statement with that score of
98.00. Just six competitors hit the
90s, which is a strong indication of how well Sadowski-Synnott’s 92.00 stacked up.
The final isn’t until Friday, with Sadowski-Synnott now planning to have Tuesday and Wednesday off, before a big training day on Thursday. Then Sadowski-Synnott will become the first New Zealander to contest an Olympic snowboard final.
‘‘This is going to be the craziest final for women’s big air you will ever see. You’ll definitely see heaps of nines and 10s, which is sick,’’ Sadowski-Synnott said.
And she’ll approach it with real confidence, after yesterday’s quality performance.
‘‘I was just really happy to land that because I had never done that before in comp. I’m just really stoked that I got a bit of redemption from the slopestyle.’’
The New Zealand speed skating team qualified for tomorrow’s semifinals despite their ‘‘worst run’’ in recent experience.
Paired against Norway in the first quarterfinal yesterday morning, the New Zealand team of Reyon Kay, Peter Michael and Shane Dobbin struggled with a warmer ice temperature in PyeongChang than they had been used to in training, and also admitted to a few nerves.
‘‘It’s definitely the [worst] run we’ve done in a couple of weeks, more than likely it was just the nerves,’’ Dobbin said.
‘‘We’ve got a few points we need to work on now. Knowing that the ice is warmer we’ll make a few technical changes and come out fighting on Wednesday.’’
The Kiwis, who clocked 3min 41sec, grabbed fourth place in the qualifiers to narrowly make it through.
They will face top qualifiers Republic of Korea (3:39.29s) in first semifinal tomorrow.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s women’s ski halfpipe competitors Janina Kuzma and Britt Hawes both failed to qualify for their final. Kuzma finished 16th with 67.80, while Hawes was 21st with 57.40.