Laurie Blouin Serves up Silver for Canada
Laurie Blouin (Stoneham, QC) overcame some incredibly challenging and windy conditions to nail her second and last run to grab a silver medal. Blouin wins Canada’s first ever medal in Olympic Women’s Slopestyle, and Canada’s 10th ever Olympic snowboarding medal. Jamie Anderson (USA) took gold while Finland’s Enni Rukajärvi finished in third.
Due to unfavourable weather conditions and high winds at the Phoenix Snow park on Saturday, the women’s qualifier was cancelled and all 26 female riders were moved to Sunday’s final under a best of two rider format. After falling on her first run, Blouin landed an incredible and highly technical run on her second go which included a massive boardslide on the kink rail and a cab underflip on the final jump to move into the 2nd spot with 6 riders to go. Brooke Voigt (Fort McMurray, AB) and Spencer O’Brien (Courtenay, C.-B) put in great efforts but were unable to land a full run and finished in 21st and 22nd respectively.
The Slopestyle/Big Air team will be back in action on the 19th of February (Korea time) for Female Big Air Qualification.
Canadian Female Halfpipe riders eliminated in Qualifications
Immediately following the Women’s Slopestyle finals, Canada’s female halfpipe riders took to their qualfication heat, with 4 time Olympian Mercedes Nicoll (North Vancouver, BC) leading the way for Canada and finishing 18th. 16 year old Elizabeth Hosking (Longueuil, QC), Canada’s youngest Olympian in PyeongChang, finished just behind Nicoll in 19th while Toronto’s Calynn Irwin finished in 23rd position.
Derek Livingston (Aurora, ON) is the sole male Canadian in Halfpipe and will take to tomorrow’s qualification round at 8:00 PM PT/11:00 PM ET.
Photo: Tyler Ashbee
