JACK GOWER CLIMBED the leaderboard on his second run to finish 25th in the men’s giant slalom skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Ireland’s Gower was ranked 31st of the 89 competitors after clocking a time of 1:08.30 on his first run on the “Ice River” course in Yanqing.
His second run of 1:12.26 gave him a combined time of 2:20.56 and a very creditable 25th-place finish overall.
Beijing 2022: Jack Gower has finished 25th in the Giant Slalom in his final race, clocking a time of 2:20.56 #beijing2022 #RTEsport pic.twitter.com/jwu0ceuE8a
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) February 13, 2022
“I missed the top thirty [in the first run] by 0.07 seconds, which would have been a game changer for me and given me a really good opportunity to do something very cool,” Gower said afterwards.
“I think it’s been fun – I quite like racing in the snow. It’s a winter sport, so that’s definitely no problem for me. I think it’s cool and makes it exciting when the vis is bad, and it’s snowing, it adds something to the race.
“It’s very challenging here, the run is a bit shorter than normal, and they’ve set it very turny, and it’s steep and very icy, they’ve put a lot of water in there. Up top it’s a real battle and a real challenge, and that’s how it should be.”
Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt finally lived up to expectations by holding his nerve in the snow and fog to win gold.
Odermatt — the current World Cup overall leader – put the disappointment of two underwhelming outings in the speed events behind him to clock a combined time of 2:09.35.
Slovenia’s Zan Kranjec claimed silver thanks to the fastest second leg, 0.19 seconds off the pace, while reigning world champion Mathieu Faivre of France took bronze, 1.34 seconds behind Odermatt.
“It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs,” said Odermatt.”It was more than five hours for me, it was such a long time to re-think everything and it was hard to stay focused. I tried to sleep some minutes in between.”
Only eight racers got within two seconds of Odermatt, many struggling with the heavy snow and increasingly foggy conditions that drastically reduced visibility.
– Additional reporting © AFP 2022
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