Slalom snowboarders wrap up competition in Sapporo

Australia’s snowboard slalom trio have wrapped up their Asian Winter Games campaign with some solid results on the slopes of Sapporo Teine.

In sunny conditions, Millie Bongiorno claimed her second top ten performance of the event when she finished eighth in today’s slalom to go with her seventh in the giant slalom yesterday.

Bongiorno put down runs of 49.4 and 43.12 seconds to finish 8.9 seconds behind China’s Ruxin Zang’s gold medal run, with Japan’s Eri Yanetani winning silver and Da-hae Shin of South Korea in third.

“I’m super happy with that,” 19-year-old Bongiorno said.

“My first run was a bit iffy but I pulled it together on the second run.

“I knew it was my last run of the Games so I just went for it and left it all out there. I couldn’t have done anything better.”

With runs of 44.06 and 37.09 seconds, Christian De Oliveira finished ninth in the men’s field of 24, just over five seconds behind South Korea’s Sang-ho Lee who won gold. Silver went to Yuya Suzuki of Japan and bronze to Sang-kyum Kim.

Nick Masjuk finished 18th after setting times of 51.8 and 42.66 seconds.

“I really enjoyed it,” De Oliveira said.

"It felt great. The second run was a lot faster than the other runs I had here and was a lot closer to the top guys so I’m definitely happy with that.

“This has been a great experience at a world class competition. There are a heap of athletes from a heap of different sports and everything has been really positive including all the Japanese fans.”

The final snowboard events of Sapporo 2017 will be the men’s and women’s halfpipe which will take place at Sapporo Bankei on Saturday February 25.

Australia will be represented by three-time Olympian Holly Crawford in the women’s event. 

Article courtesy of Matt Bartolo/Michelle Cook | olympics.com.au