FULLER’S DREAMS ARE BLOWN AWAY
AIMEE FULLER’S hopes of a slopestyle medal were shredded yesterday but at least she stayed in one piece. On a day when the organisers here were accused of endangering athletes in high winds, that was the only relief for the British snowboarder. It verged on farce during the final in the mountains of Pyeongchang as one rider after another suffered dangerous falls in the 30mph gusts.
For Fuller, 26, the scare came as she flew the height of a house off the final jump of her second run and lost control in the wind. She hit the deck hard before sliding down the slope on her back.
Thankfully, she got to her feet but she was left both disappointed at a 17th-placed finish and bewildered that the event was allowed to go ahead at all.
The shared sense of shock among the 26 finalists over why the event was not rescheduled was backed up by the staggering statistic that of a combined 52 runs, 43 ended with a fall — at least one for each rider.
Jenny Jones, Britain’s snowboard medallist from Sochi 2014, said: ‘Why didn’t someone say, “Let’s postpone this?”
‘It is not (meant to be) safe because it is an extreme sport — you are flying off a 70ft kicker — but it is (a question of) how much is it unsafe, and I think some of them were very upset that it went ahead. Luckily, no one was badly injured.’
Fuller reached the final by virtue of Sunday’s qualifying session being cancelled due to the wind. Her first run saw her skip a jump after losing speed in a strong headwind and the second was progressing well until she hit a huge gust in mid-flight.
‘It was not what I dreamed of for my final but I’m lucky to be in one piece,’ she said. ‘On my first run it felt like I was riding into a giant wind funnel. It’s a final, but you’ve got to think about your welfare too, so I held back from a jump.
‘On the second run there was a gust that took me sideways. My board felt like a parasail. It was ripped from under my feet.’
After defending champion Jamie Anderson of the US won gold, the International Olympic Committee defended their decision to run the event, a spokesman saying: ‘The competition is run by the International Ski Federation. They know their athletes and the conditions they work in. The safety of the athletes is the No 1 priority.’
A potential scheduling crisis now looms with poor weather forecasts until Thursday. The giant slalom was postponed yesterday, a day after the same happened to the men’s downhill.