KATIE’S COLD COMFORT
SNOWBOARDING
BY ALEX SPINK
KATIE ORMEROD put herself through the pain barrier to make it to Beijing and finally call herself an Olympian.
She refused to give up on her dream after snapping her heel bone in half in Pyeongchang on the eve of the 2018 Games.
Seven operations later, including a graft using the skin of a pig, she made an emotional return to the fiveringed circus. But that was as good as it got as the Yorkshire-born snowboarder missed out on a place in today’s slopestyle final.
In minus 20-degree cold, Ormerod finished 19th on the artificial snow in Zhangjiakou, with only the top 12 advancing to fight another day.
She refused to beat herself up about it, and said: “I’ve been waiting a really long time for this moment to drop in and compete in an Olympic Games.
“I was stood at the top before my first run when I was about to drop in and I was like, ‘Wow, this is my moment, I’ve become an Olympian, finally’.
The 24-year old put down a safe first run, scoring 47.38 points, but needed to improve it on her second and instead posted 44.01.
New Zealand favourite Zoi Sadowski Synnott leads the field with a score of 86.75, with seven other athletes nailing scores of more than 70.
Ormerod now turns her attention to the Big Air qualification today.