The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Snowboarder Jenny Jones was “so happy” yesterday after becoming Britain’s first medal winner at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. She secured bronze in the women’s snowboard slopestyle. The 33-year-old from Bristol was hugged by her mother on live television
TEA M GB snowboarder Jenny Jones yesterday won Britain’s first-ever medal on snow in Olympic Games stretching back to Chamonix in 1924.
Jones, 33, the oldest women in the field by a country mile, took a dramatic bronze in snowboard slopestyle, one of the disciplines making its debut in Sochi.
Contrast that with Inverurie’s Callum Smith who, aged 21, had only four competitors younger than himself in yesterday’s 68-strong skiathlon field, a gruelling 30km cross country haul on skis that dates to the inaugural 1924 games.
Jenny Jones, from Bristol, actually found herself in the gold medal position after scoring 87.25 points in her second run – and had to endure an agonising wait while 10 athletes tried to better her total.
A merican Jamie A nderson eventually took gold with 95.25, ahead of Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi on 92.50. But Jones secured bronze when the final competitor, Austrian medal prospect A nna Gasser, stumbled and fell.
In taking bronze, Jones became the first Briton to win an Olympic medal on snow rather than ice, where 22 medals had been won before Sochi in events such as curling, skeleton, figure skating and bobsleigh.
“Even when I was in the gold medal position I knew I was going to drop, but I didn’t know how far. I am just so happy that I stayed on the podium,” she said.
“I thought I did my best run and landed it as best as I could. Thankfully it was enough. But that was a long waiting game!”
More than six years older than anyone in yesterday’s final, she said some people had wondered if she was “past it” in a sport which requires spectacular combinations of snowboard slides, spins and flips.
“A few said ‘is she past it?’ but I did what I could and, thankfully, it got me there. I feel so proud.
“I feel absolutely ecstatic. I knew I’d drop down because there were so many girls to come. When the last girl went and I realised she’d missed the rail, I thought: ‘Oh my goodness I’ve made it’.”
The medal continues a remarkable story for Jones, who took up snowboarding aged 16, and who has worked in a cardboard factory, a doughnut shop and as a chalet maid to help fund her career.
“I absolutely did not think I would be in this position back then as a chambermaid I was cooking breakfasts and cleaning toilets. But I was snowboarding everyday and having fun,” she said.
Last night she was proudly wearing a medal the size of a dustbin and promising she was good for a few more years. But how did it feel to make sporting history?
“The history part is still sinking in — hopefully I’ll be in a few pub quizzes now.”
Yesterday also brought a drive up to the Laura biathlon and cross country centre high in the Caucuses, with most spectators completing the last mile on foot uphill on snow, with signs along the way saying: ‘Well, these are the Olympics. You have to be tough.’
Neither was it a stroll for the 68 competitors in the men’s 15km + 15km skiathlon, an event which requires supreme fitness where participants ski the first half in classic steps, essentially walking with a glide between steps, and the second 15km freestyle, where speed is generated by using the same pushing-off motion used on ice skates.
Debut Olympian Callum Smith had hinted that placing 60th was his likely finish, but hoped for better.
He wore number 59 and was in that position for much of the race until tiredness left him 62nd overall, in 1 hr 17.37 sec. A t 21, he was the fifth youngest athlete to start.
“I started off pretty hard and I think maybe that was a little bit of a mistake as I was tired for the last 10km,” he said.
“It wasn’t because I was caught up with the occasion or anything like that. I was just trying to stick with the leaders for as long as I could. I’ve been doing a few of these 30kms and it was probably my best event coming into the Olympics.
“The selection to get into this race is pretty hard. A lot of the smaller nations don’t even compete. Even not to be at the back, you have actually got to do reasonably well.
“I would have definitely have liked to have been in the top 60, but it’s okay. The crowd helped a bit, but I was really tired and just trying to keep going.”
Smith, a member of the Huntly Nordic Ski Club that has provided all four of Team GB’s cross country squad, said he did