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.

Congratulations to Zoe Gillings - she's just proved why she's the UK's number one Snowboardcross athlete by producing her best result of the season.  She finished in 4th place at the FIS World Cup Snowboardcross competition in Sungwoo, Korea. Zoe qualified into the finals in ninth position, and won her first heat convincingly leaving World Number one, Lyndsay Jacobellis trailing behind. The line up in the second heat was particularly tough as it included three of the Worlds top racers, each with World Cup victories under their belts. An extremely focused Zoe didn’t let this faze her and produced yet another great result finishing second and securing her place in the final. In the final it was a head-to-head dual down the technical and demanding course with each rider battling hard for position. Unfortunately being placed in the slowest of the narrow lanes, Zoe was unable to overtake and finished in 4th place, narrowly missing out on a podium position. This is Zoe’s best result in three and a half years and she has now competed in two finals in the past four weeks. Zoe commented after the race, “Its great to be back reaching the finals again, a World cup win is firmly in my sights.”

Results
1st – Maelle Ricker (CAN)
2nd – Lindsey Jacobellis (USA)
3rd – Mellie Francon (SUI)
4th – Zoe Gillings, (UK)

Well done Zoe :)