Baff finishes season with yet another podium
Published Fri 31 Mar 2023
Josie Baff has capped off an incredible 2022/23 campaign with a silver medal at the Snowboard Cross Junior World Championships in Italy.
It was the standout Australian performance of the week as the Junior World Championships continued across Europe.
Snowboard Cross
Twenty-year-old Josie Baff opened her season with a World Cup win and her beaming smile has barely left with a string of podium performances.
Baff bookended her World Cup season last weekend in Canada with a second victory, along the way finishing third on the World Cup standings and picking up a silver medal at the World Championships.
Now she has a Junior World Championship medal to add to her collection after finishing runner up to France’s Lea Casta at Passo San Pellegrino overnight. It was a high quality final, with Casta finishing third behind Baff at the opening World Cup of the season. Germany’s Celia Trinkl picked up the bronze.
Abbey Wilson (=9th) and Taya-Lilli Dent were knocked out in the quarter finals, Maya Billingham finished in a share of 17th while Lara Walsh was eliminated in the pre-heats.
In the men’s competition, James Johnstone progressed to the quarter finals (=13th), William McCarthy made the 1/8th final (=25th) and Max Vardy, Angus Jones, Cameron Turner and William Martin made it as far as the 1/16th final.
The Mixed Team event will be held on Friday evening (Australian time) with Baff and Johnstone going in as the No.6 seeds, Wilson and McCarthy seeded 16th and Billingham and Vardy seeded 21st in the 32-team contest.
Ski Cross
Following their individual events last week, Duncan Cowan and Jesse Quinn joined forces on Tuesday in the Ski Cross Team event at Passo San Pellegrino, Italy.
Seeded 15th out of 17 teams, the Aussies made their way out of the pre-heats and upset Italy and Switzerland to move through to the semi-finals.
Cowan and Quinn eventually finished fourth in the small final to place eighth overall in an impressive performance.
Aerials
Victorian Institute of Sport skiers Miriana Perkins, Sidney Stephens and Reilly Flanagan can hold their heads high after strong outings at the Aerials Junior World Championships in Austria.
The trio opened their campaign with a collective sixth place in the team event on Wednesday before the individual events on Thursday.
With less than two years on skis, the former gymnasts pulled off some impressive performances.
Miriana Perkins made it through to the final and finished in fourth place overall. Sidney Stephens was less than half a point off making it to the top six, finishing in seventh, while in the men’s event Riley Flanagan placed 18th.
