CRASHING FORTUNES
AUSTRALIAN boarder Cameron Bolton admits Australia’s snowboard cross performance at the Beijing Olympics has been a disaster, illustrated by the two crashes of the Australian mixed teams in a new event that the country was the reigning world champion.
Cameron’s partner Belle Brockhoff, one of the best performing athletes finishing fourth in her individual competition, crashed in the mixed teams event on Saturday and was taken to hospital for precautionary neck scans, before being cleared of any serious injury.
The other female competitor in Australia’s second mixed team, Josie Baff, who combined with Adam Lambert, had fallen a few seconds earlier while struggling with the falling snow.
Bolton said the women faced tricky conditions. because sometimes the rider drafting behind in a track goes quicker than the leading athlete who is driving through the snow.
But the Australian snowboard cross team had been expected to pick up at least one medal at these Games.
Bolton was the best-performing male having survived one heat run in the mens individual event. He said there were “no limits” for what could have been achieved but acknowledged nothing went Australia’s way.
“I don’t think the Olympics could have gone much worse for the Australian boarder/cross teams to be honest,” he said.
Brockhoff was taken from the Genting Snow Park course in a stretcher after her fall, which delayed the running of the event for more than 15 minutes.
Both of the Australian teams were drawn in the same heat, which theoretically gave Australia a 50 per cent chance of getting a team through to the quarter-finals.
Baff claimed the ultimate winner, American Lindsey Jacobellis cut across her line.
“I was just kind of setting up in my line. I wasn’t really expecting Lindsey to come across as much as she did, and I wasn’t as stable. I wasn’t ready over those rollers to have any kind of impact. I wasn’t steady enough, so I just kind of fell out,’’ said Baff from Jindabyne.
“It’s devastating. You get one chance as well, so if you stuff up you’re gone.”
The Americans, with a combined age of 76, won the gold medal. Jacobellis, 36, also the individual women’s winner, paired with Nick Baumgartner, 40, to beat the Italian pair. Canada was third.