Costly for teen in slopestyle final
a better performance than she was able to deliver, admitting she struck some trouble on the rail section of the course.
“I was pretty devastated that I couldn’t put down a clean run and see where that got me,” she said. “The conditions were a bit tough, quite windy. It was quite consistent but it played with your mind a bit when you were dropping it.
“I guess it got to me a bit and I messed up a few things.”
The start of the event was delayed by over an hour due to high winds. In a poor advertisement for the sport, only a small number of the 25 riders were able to land their runs. The final took place a day after qualification was cancelled due to wind and all riders progressed, with the decider shortened from three runs to two to fit into the predicted competition window.
“It is pretty scary,” SadowskiSynnott said of the high winds. “You don’t come into a jump the same as you usually would. You come in really fierce and ready to knuckle and hurt yourself, but also try and land.”
Sadowski-Synnott is back in action on Monday in qualifying for the Big Air competition.
New Zealand’s youngest team member, 16-year-old alpine racer Alice Robinson, was set to compete in the women’s giant slalom, but the event was postponed and will now be run on Thursday. Robinson will now have the first of her two events in the slalom tomorrow, where she will line up against defending champion American Mikaela Shiffrin, who is tipped to be one of the stars of these Olympics. — Christopher Reive