Team Ireland were in action on day five of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics with Seamus O’Connor finishing 15th in the men's snowboard halfpipe while Tess Arbez finished 48th overall in women’s slalom skiing.
Snowboarder O’Connor became the first Team Ireland athlete to ever compete in three Winter Olympic Games and scored his top result 57.0 in the opening run of the halfpipe, with a ride including tricks such as a backside air and a front side double-cork 1080.
The snowboard halfpipe is a competition performed in a half tube of snow, where athletes are judged based on the tricks they perform in their run. The top 12 athletes advance to the finals where they can contest the medals.
“Snowboarding is, to me, the funnest thing in the world. And every day that I get to ride a snowboard, I’m thankful. My first run was a little bit sketchy. I had it down better yesterday, so I mean, I put it down and I was stoked for that. But I was really looking towards my second run to come back and clean it up and just put that Seamus signature on it,” O’Connor said.
“But something went wrong on the takeoff of my first trick on the second run. And I had to pull out of the double, which then ended the run for me. But it’s snowboarding and it’s never perfect. And that’s alright. I’m super thankful to be down there in one piece and to be in my third Games. Overall, it’s been an incredible experience.”
Elsewhere, skier Tess Arbez finished 48th overall in the women’s slalom after two clean runs, in an icy event that saw 30 athletes marked as DNF (did not finish).
Slalom is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline, involving skiing between poles or gates.
In her first run Arbez finished 55th with a time of 1:07.83, and moved up to 48th overall with a time of 1:06.78 in her second run, giving a total of 2:14.61.
Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova won the gold medal ahead of Austria’s Katharina Leinsberger in silver, and Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener rounded off the podium with a bronze medal.
Tomorrow skier Jack Gower will be the only Team Ireland athlete to compete, when he races the alpine combined, an event that includes downhill and slalom, with the overall standing being a combination of the two individual times.
