Anderson defends Olympic gold in blustery slopestyle final

But the weather worsened, and most riders performed more poorly on their second runs.

Not that anyone would know that from watching the Olympic slopestyle final on Monday. But afterward, they made clear the event should not have been run in those conditions.

“I felt really strong winds as soon as I dropped in and knew I kind of had to go with it and hope for the best”, she said.

Largely they agreed, it was not safe. “All I wanted to do was sit up top and cry”, said Norway’s Silje Norendal, per the AP, who finished just outside of a medal at fourth place. She put down two of the highest scoring runs of the day. I had a fall and hurt my chin a little (on my first run) so that wasn’t too nice. It was the sort of run that might’ve won a contest in, say, 2005 – if the rest of the riders were having an off day. It’s all that was safe to do in the constantly shifting wind. “So thankfully I don’t feel like I really need to worry”, Anderson exclusively told Us Weekly.

Snowboarding extraordinaire Jamie Anderson, 27, defended her title on Sunday, winning gold in the women’s snowboarding slopestyle final, NBC Sports reports.

“I don’t think it was a fair competition”, said Austria’s Anna Gasser, one of top slopestyle snowboarders, who placed 15th.

Instead, the riders had to essentially hit the lottery to land a good run. Snowboarders said that their boards acted like giant sails, catching the wind and amplifying it. Five-time Olympian Kelly Clark finished 11th in qualifications and will have a chance to contend for a medal. Anderson and her cohort will tackle a course filled with ramps, rails, and jumps created to push snowboarders into the most creative – and hard – runs they can manage. “It was super unfortunate”.

In fact, not only did the weather eliminate Sunday’s qualifying rounds, it delayed the start of Monday’s two-run final, drove spectators away, and harassed riders in pursuit of Olympic glory. Especially now that the qualifiers were canceled and finals are a two- and not three-run format. Dealing with winds, a handful bailed on a jump.

Slopestyle brings all the elements of the skate park to the mountain, but they’ll be spaced down a long path devoted to picking up speed and unlocking some of the craziest tricks you’ll see at the Olympics. When we were practising and even earlier this morning when we all got there, it was really bad and they did delay it and did their best.

Anderson was one of the few riders in the final to navigate the tricky series of rails and jumps safely as the wind wreaked havoc on the field.

“The first priority for FIS is the safety of the athletes and FIS would never stage a competition if this could not be assured”, it said in a statement. “And I got a lot of wind on my run so that was bad”. Asked whether it had been the right decision to hold the event, she replied: “It wasn’t”.

“It’s a little amusing that they can move the downhill five days and they pressure us into riding in these conditions”. Others couldn’t even get that far on the course, stumbling and not even trying for big air at the finale. “I don’t think we can do anything without the support of each other and it’s not just me, it’s all these people around me that keep my spirits lifted and help me to be my best self”.