Set your alarms again! We have three of our ladies in action on Monday morning. At 1am we have Rowan Cheshire and Molly Summerhayes skiing in halfpipe qualis, and also at 1am we have Aimee Fuller riding Big Air qualis
Today’s events
Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Slopestyle
Tomorrow’s events
Snowboard: Ladies’ Big Air Qualifying
Freestyle Skiing: Ladies Halfpipe Qualifying
DAY 9 WRAP
FREESTYLE SKIING: MEN’S SLOPESTYLE at Phoenix Snow Park
Team GB Results: James Woods 4th, Tyler Harding 29th
Freestyle skier James Woods went agonisingly close to earning a place on the Olympic podium, finishing fourth in today’s men’s slopestyle.
Hoping to emulate Izzy Atkin’s bronze-medal winning performance from yesterday, Woods left nothing in the tank, going big on all three runs in the final.
The 26-year-old was laying down a great first run before crashing out at the final jump, however he then backed that up with a 91-point second run to sit temporarily in the silver medal position.
With one run to go, Woods was in third and despite a couple of mistakes, he still managed a 90-point third run but was unable to improve his position.
It was then a waiting game to see if he could hold onto his position, however when American Nick Goepper scored 93.60 on his final run, Woods’ tenuous grip on the bronze medal was lifted.
Norway’s Oystein Braaten (95.00) took the gold from Goepper with Canadian Alex Beaulieu-Marchand (92.40) in third.
Following the event, Woods said he believes if he had pieced together all the elements of his performance in one run, the result could have been a lot different.
“That run, in my honest opinion, I think I can put my hand on my heart and say [if it’s] clean, I definitely could have won, and I’m proud of that,” said Woods. “I put in a really good nudge, I took a massive hit on the first run, but I’m pretty sure I laced that run – that I was constructing for a good amount of time – three times on the bounce, under pressure, and I’m proud of that.
“Now compared to Sochi, [where] I didn’t put my best effort down; there wasn’t the depth of field that there was here – the positions really don’t matter. But today I went out there and put it all on the line and I went for broke.
“That was just the most incredible competition – it really, really was. We had perfect weather, we had a perfect course, everyone brought their A-game – it was an amazing event. It was just a great show. I could not be prouder of free skiing.”
While Woods came through qualifying in eighth position to make the final, Tyler Harding was not so lucky.
Making his Olympic debut, the 21-year-old took on the course and put together solid rails sections but twice crashed out on the jumps, finishing in 29th overall.
The determination in Harding’s runs belied his flawed build-up to PyeongChang after a torn meniscus in January hampered his preparations.
After making his debut in PyeongChang, Harding said is was special to not only be part of the Olympics, but part of the best quality slopestyle competition he has ever witnessed.
“Everything outside of that [knee injury] has been amazing – seeing the fans, seeing the people back home, the reception – I’m very happy about that,” said Harding.
“It is a very hard course to get top to bottom with your best run. There’s a of of things to do, a lot of different features – hard, long features as well.
“Even in qualifiers, it was the highest level I’ve ever seen in free skiing, and then in the finals everyone stepped up a notch even more.”
DAY 10 PREVIEW
SNOWBOARD: LADIES’ BIG AIR at Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre
12:30am (GMT) Qualifying – Aimee Fuller
History will be made at Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre tomorrow morning when the new discipline of snowboard big air makes its Olympic debut.
And the ladies involved will be keen to put on quite the show after their slopestyle competition was largely derailed by the gusting winds at Phoenix Snow Park earlier in the week.
Aimee Fuller will be the lone Brit standing at the top of the kicker tomorrow while Katie Ormerod – a pre-competition favourite before fracturing her heal in slopestyle training – will be watching on from home.
Fuller has twice earned top 10 finishes at World Cup level and was 11th at the Olympic venue when a test event was held at Alpensia.
This season she has competed twice at big air World Cups with a best result of 11th in Moenchengladbach.
FREESTYLE SKIING: LADIES’ HALFPIPE at Phoenix Snow Park
1am (GMT) Qualifying – Rowan Cheshire & Molly Summerhayes
Britain’s pair of ladies’ halfpipe skiers have taken different paths to PyeongChang but both will be hoping to let their performances do the talking when competition gets underway tomorrow.
Rowan Cheshire’s Olympic campaign was over before it started in Sochi after crashing out in practice and suffering concussion.
Her road back to the top of the sport has been a long and difficult one, and the program which sees her at the start line tomorrow has been measured and well-considered.
Cheshire’s return to competition has been managed closely by the GB Park & Pipe Team, gradually building her performances towards the level which brought her World Cup glory in 2014.
She will be competing alongside 20-year-old Molly Summerhayes who is making her Olympic debut.
Summerhayes, who works at McDonald’s when she’s back home to help fund her career, left halfpipe training yesterday to watch sister Katie score an inspirational seventh place in the slopestyle final despite an ankle injury.
The 2015 World Junior Champion scored her first World Cup top 10 in December when she was ninth in China and she will have her sights set on attempting to qualify for Tuesday’s final.
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