‘Super happy’ to earn bronze
SNOWBOARDING
WANAKA snow boarder Zoi SadowskiSynnott went to the edge and beyond to grab a bonze medal at the X Games in Aspen yesterday.
Competing in the Snowboard Big Air yesterday, SadowskiSynnott landed a front 1080 and a back 1080 for a combined score of 86 to claim her second medal at the 2021 X Games Aspen and the fifth X Games medal of her career.
“To get on the podium was amazing because of how high the level of Big Air is right now. My goal for the event was to land back 1080 and front 1080; that’s what I came here to do so I am super happy,” she said.
After a 24hour delay due to unfavourable weather conditions on Sunday, conditions were perfect yesterday.
SadowskiSynnott crashed her first run but regained her form, landing a front 1080 on her second run to score an impressive 44.
In her third run she attempted a massive back 1080 but could not quite get it to her feet. SadowskiSynnott gave the back 1080 another go in run four and stomped it, rewarded with a score of 42 moving her into the bronze medal position.
She gave it everything on her fifth and final run to get into the top spot, attempting a huge backside 1260 but couldn’t quite stick the landing.
“This was the first time I have ever tried it [the backside 1260]. I was feeling good, and the jump was perfect. I knew if I wanted to win, I had to try the back 1260.”
Jamie Anderson, of the
United States, won gold and added her 19th X Games medal to her collection. Miyabi Onitsuka, of Japan, claimed the silver medal. Although Onitsuka had the same combined score as SadowskiSynnott, she held the higher single trick score (47), which ranked her ahead of the New Zealander.
Big Air consists of a 30minute jam format where the athletes take as many runs as they can within the time window. Each jump is scored out of 50 and their top two scoring tricks are combined to give a ranking out of 100.
The Wanaka athlete won a silver in the snowboard slopestyle earlier in the X Games.