Nike ACG Team Blog : News from the snowbard team

I made in onto the podium!

That was my goal for this competition because I was so close at my last comp in Korea. And I came 2^nd!

I had some difficulty with the snow changing in qualifying so just scraped through in 13^th position. This meant I had to fight in every heat to get in from the worst start gate.

In my first heat, I was in 4^th going into the first turn, I passed into 3rd going around the 2^nd turn and then into 2nd further down the course, I kept that position the rest of the way down. One girl tried a move to pass me just before the finish but she didn’t manage it.

The second heat was another interesting one, I was in 4^th into the first turn again, the girl in front of me messed up on one of the jumps so I passed her in the following turn which put me in 3^rd. I did the same move just before the finish that the girl had tried to do to me in my last heat but I succeeded where she hadn’t and I got into 2^nd which qualified me for the final!

I got into 3^rd going into the first turn. I had to keep the girl I had passed behind me while trying to catch the 2 in front of me. I passed Lyndsey Jacobellis (Olympic silver medallist) half way down and I held second place the remainder of the course, I got close to the leader (Maelle Ricker) at the end but not quite close enough to pass.

So I got silver! It’s the first time I have been on the podium for a good while and it feels great!

I am off to Lake Placid tomorrow for the next world cup. I have just finished packing.

Only one place further up to go!

Zoe  

P.S. My current world ranking is 4^th.