New Zealand snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has qualified first in the women’s Snowboarding Big Air at the Winter Olympics.
Sadowski-Synnott, who won gold and silver medals at the 2022 Winter Games, recorded a score of 90.0 with a superb first run – a switchback 1260 which included three and a half rotations.
The run left the 24-year-old, a New Zealand flagbearer at this Olympics, clear of the 29-women field.
She followed up with the fourth-best score in the second round of 82.25 for an overall tally of 172.25. Sadowski-Synnott recorded another 82.25 in a conservative third run. Competitors' top two scores are counted.
Japan's Murase Kokomo qualified second, with Great Britain's Mia Brookes third.
Sadowski-Synnott’s countrywoman Lucia Georgalli was 25th.
The top 12 qualifiers will contest the final at the Livigno Snow Park in Northern Italy tomorrow morning.
Wānaka's Sadowski-Synnott, who is competing in her third Olympics, is chasing her first Big Air gold.
Sadowski-Synnott became the first New Zealander to win a gold at the Winter Games in 2022 when she triumphed in women’s slopestyle, where snowboarders demonstrate their skills on a course with obstacles and jumps. She followed with a silver in Big Air. She also won bronze in Big Air at the 2018 Games when she was 16.
In an interview with the Associated Press several weeks before the current Olympics, she said: “We come from a small country. It is not as wealthy as say the United States, and if you have a dream, you have to work hard for it. I think that’s kind of kind of in our blood.”
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