ZHANGJIAKOU, China – Quebec’s Laurie Blouin took another step towards winning another Olympic medal on Saturday.
Blouin had a better second run and qualified for the snowboard slopestyle final at the Beijing Games with a seventh-place finish.
Despite cold temperatures and strong winds at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, Blouin upped the ante on her second run and collected 71.55 points.
Silver medalist in this discipline at the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, Blouin had had some difficulty with the execution of some of her jumps during her first run, but she had landed them all. Her total of 66.85 points was good for fourth place.
Blouin will not be joined by a compatriot in the final, however, as Jasmine Baird of Georgetown, Ont., and Brooke Voigt of Fort McMurray, Alta., failed to crack the top-12.
Baird tallied 49.50 points on her first run and was in ninth place but couldn’t improve after a tough second run. She took 15th place.
Seventeenth after the first run, under a total of 37.11 points, Voigt crashed on her second run and attempted no maneuvers in the final two sections. She finished the race in 22nd position.
New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski Synnott had a spectacular second run, good for 86.75 points, and she finished atop qualifying.
American Jamie Anderson, reigning Olympic champion in this discipline, scored 74.35 points on her first run and that was enough to put her in fifth place.
The final of this event will take place on Sunday, just before the men’s qualifications.
The slopestyle events will take place from February 5-7. The high jump competition will then take place on February 14 and 15 at the Shougang site, just outside Beijing.
