A combination of falling snow and bad waxing dashed podium hopes in the new mixed team snowboardcross event.
The grimace soup. For its great Olympic premiere, the mixed team snowboardcross event did not smile on the French, to say the least. Two quarter-finals, two last places and two medalist hopes evaporated under the falling snow of Zhangjiakou. The first snowflakes of these Games on the freestyle site will have buried the blue snowboards, taped to the track. First in action, the Loan Bozzolo-Julia Pereira de Sousa tandem will only have deceived the first named, a time in the lead before letting their opponents slip away. “I got off to a good start though, but as soon as I flattened the board they passed me like cannonballs“, he let go, disillusioned. “It’s a shame because it wouldn’t happen if we had steeper courses. Consideration should be given to the risk of such conditions when designing such a course.»
It’s boring, it’s not real snowboarding. It was a bit of a carnage.
Julia Pereira de Sousa
By giving the relay to her partner almost four seconds late, the mission was impossible, and touched in addition to the knee, the Olympic vice-champion of Pyeongchang will never have led to believe in a comeback. “It makes no sense“, she fumed despite a smile of facade. “When there are conditions like that, with falling snow, it becomes terrible on a track that is already not very fast at the base. Suddenly, it turns to the race of technicians, more riders. It’s super frustrating for us because we wanted to express our qualities, and we couldn’t at all. It’s boring, it’s not real snowboarding. It was a bit of a carnage.“A finding also valid for the duo Merlin Surget-Chloé Trespeuch, last of the third quarter. Totally helpless.
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«We had at heart with Chloé to perform because we have the capacities I thinkhe will rise up. “Between the two of us, if we could put our strengths in common, I think there was a way to have a good run. Unfortunately, with the conditions, it didn’t. From practice earlier in the morning, we felt it was going to be a weird day. The girls couldn’t pass their jumps and I didn’t finish a run because I lacked speed. It’s a shame, we didn’t want to end the Olympics like that after the two individuals we produced. Now it happens, it’s snowboarding, an outdoor sport, and you have to know how to adapt.»
«There is frustration above all“, added his partner, Olympic vice-champion three days ago. “What we like are technical boarders, which slide, where there are challenges. There, they decided to keep the race in conditions that do not highlight our sport, nor all the work that we put in place to be both fast, technical and explosive. We took no pleasure, we simply did not have the weapons to fight. Still, we gave everything on the legs to try to create speed but nothing was happening. Today was just a giant slide test and we lost because we didn’t have the best product under our boards.Which inevitably put French technicians and waxing in the dock…
Technicians guilty, but not convicted
Guilty, it is a certainty, but not condemned to listen to the four athletes, all in unison. For Loan Bozzolo, “the technicians work a lot more than us, they are very committed. As soon as they get up, they look at the weather outside and immediately start looking for solutions. They are chemists. Today, their work has not borne fruit but no one blames them. It’s teamwork. When an athlete fails, they too suffer. So it’s nobody’s fault, or everyone’s fault, but not just a few.“An opinion shared by Chloé Trespeuch, who had hoped for a postponement of the event: “We can’t blame our technicians. They do their best every day to find the right products, it’s a very hard job that requires constant adaptation. This is played on details for the athletes, but also for the technicians. Today we missed that little detail but I think they will learn from their mistakes and we will all bounce back together.“Unfortunately, it will not be on these Games which end with only one medal, that of silver of Trespeuch, and some regrets.
