Follow the Olympic Games on RDS and Sportish
After Marielle Thompson’s silver medal on the women’s side yesterday in ski cross, Canada had high hopes for a medal in the men’s competition today at the Beijing Olympics.
Hope was extinguished when defending Olympic champion Brady Leman was eliminated in the semi-finals.
The four Canadians in contention had reached the quarter-finals, Reece Howden the first.
Leman then narrowly passed to join Howden in the same wave of quarterbacks.
Jared Schmidt also did well in a race that was mostly down to three due to Japanese Satoshi Furuno crashing early in the course.
Finally, Kevin Drury overtook the German Florian Wilmsmann to snatch second qualifying place in his wave.
Things got tough in the quarters. Despite a collision of the Swiss Joos Berry on Leman, the latter was able to stay on his feet and even pass his compatriot Howden, who was therefore eliminated.
In the following race, Schmidt and the Austrian Tristan Takats hooked their skis and the Canadian was never able to catch up on the two leaders, also provoking his elimination.
Drury suffered the same fate, being outpaced by only a few hundredths while he was second for a good part of the race.
Quick Canadians in qualifying
Brady Leman, Reece Howden and Jared Schmidt set the 4th, 5th and 6th fastest times in the ranking round to secure good waves in the round of 16.
Kevin Drury was 15th out of 32.
