SNOWBOARD: Tess Coady has a spot in Sunday's women's slopestyle final after landing two solid runs on the opening day of competition.
The 21-year-old was out for redemption after an injury ended her PyeongChang 2018 Olympic campaign during a training session.
Showing her skills across one of the most stunning Olympic venues, Tess landed a solid first run with 55.98 that put her sitting in 7th position heading into the second run.
She came out looking more comfortable in the second run, and her score of 71.13 reflected just that, and used that score to qualify 8th as one of 12 finalists.
"I was pretty happy to land my first run because I got smoked on my last round of practice,” Tess said.
“So it was kind of stretching at the top but that probably always helped the nerves because at that point I was literally just like, 'Oh, I've got to land something.’
“I didn't really have time to get caught up in all the crowd and the hype, because I was just getting down the course.
"I was stoked to make it better on my second run. It came together and I'm stoked to get a pretty good score.”
Clear blue skies greeted competitors with the wind playing a role in today’s results.
"It was definitely a little bit breezy, but it was better than everyone thought it was going to be this morning.
“Last night I was looking at the weather and thought it was maybe a good chance that it might not have run, but it was actually riding really well. The snow was good, the wind was pretty manageable.”
Tess will now progress through to Sunday’s slopestyle final starting at 12:30pm AEDT.
It will be all action for the Australians tomorrow on the slopestyle course with Olympic debutant Matt Cox to line up for the qualification rounds.
Matt has been happy with how his training has gone and will be looking to finish in the top 12 to secure a finals berth on Monday 7 February.
He has had a solid build up to the Games, taking silver in slopestyle at the 2021 US Open in Aspen and then another silver at the US Nationals in Copper Mountain a month later.
The men’s snowboard slopestyle qualifying gets underway on Sunday 6 February from 3:30pm AEDT.
Lauren Ryan
#HaveAGo
Snowboard
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