Knight rider
So close for Carlos
Carlos Garcia Knight narrowly missed a Winter Olympics medal after crashing while in bronze position on his final run of the snowboard slopestyle final.
The 20-year-old’s best score of 78.60 put him in the lead after the first run in PyeongChang yesterday, raising hopes New Zealand could end a 26-year Games medal drought.
But mistakes on his second and third efforts, including a failed land- ing on a rail feature, saw him drop to fifth place of the 12-man final in breezy conditions.
American Redmond Gerard — the youngest competitor in the final — took gold after nailing his final run with a score of 87.17.
The 17-year-old coming from well down in the contest after unsuccessful first two runs to push Garcia Knight out of the medals.
The Kiwi was next down the Bokwang Snow Park course after Gerard, but faltered on the first section to dash his medal hopes and leaving him with his hands on his knees at the end of the run.
Canadians Max Parrot and Mark McMorris won silver and bronze respectively, with Norway’s Staale Sandbech fourth.
Garcia Knight competed well after coming into the event on the back of disappointing results in recent World Cup and X-Games events in the US.
He was second in his qualification heat on Saturday to be the final’s sixth seed after completing an impressive backside 1260 tail grab (three-and-a-half spins with a clock- wise rotation) for a score of 80.1
But his finals runs weren’t as good and he could only back up his firstup effort with scores of 52.98 and 24.35.
He will compete in the big air event next week.
“On the last run, I was really nervous I got a little bit overwhelmed. But to come fifth at my first Olympics, I’m relatively happy,” Garcia Knight said.