Breckenridge, USA- (12 January 2014) Blizzard conditions in Breckenridge Colorado led to the cancellation of the slopestyle finals at the FIS Freestyle World Cup in Breckenridge, one of the final Olympic qualifying events ahead of the Sochi Olympic Winter Games.
Todays freeski halfpipe finals narrowly escaped a similar fate.
The cancellation of the slopestyle final event saw Wanakas Jossi Wells finish with an official placing of 12th, with just one more event remaining at which to secure a valuable second quota spot for New Zealand.
The decision to cancel the final event followed FIS rules that state, if a phase of an event cannot be completed, results from the last competitive phase of the event to be completed will be used as final results. In the case of the Breckenridge slopestyle, qualifications had been successfully completed on Wednesday, and therefore those results become the official results.
The event was cancelled after several delays as organisers attempted to alternately wait out the weather and clear snow off the course.
Jossi will now compete at the World Cup slopestyle in Gstaad, Switzerland on January 18th. This is the final slopestyle World Cup and qualifying event before the Olympic Winter Games.
Freeski Halfpipe Final
Snow continued to fall throughout the finals of the freeski halfpipe with athletes struggling to put down runs in the slow conditions. New Zealands Lyndon Sheehan landed his first run before crashing out on the second to place thirteenth overall. The crash resulted in a sore knee and Lyndon is currently being assessed by the teams medical staff.
New Zealand currently holds four freeski halfpipe quota spots in the mens discipline and one quota spot in the womens discipline. Results achieved at the Breckenridge event have enabled the New Zealand athletes to consolidate their world rankings and keep their Olympic qualifying campaign on track.
National quota spots for Freeski slopestyle and freeski and Snowboard halfpipe and freeski will be confirmed by the international federations after January 19th 2014 with nominations and Olympic selection to take place over the following week.
Full slopestyle results can be found here:
http://www.fis-ski.com/freestyle-skiing/halfpipe-slopestyle/events-and-places/results/.
Full halfpipe results can be found here http://data.fisski.com/dynamic/results.html?sector=FS&raceid=7698
The New Zealand Olympic Team is expected to be made up of around 14 athletes across both ice and snow sports with the majority of athletes competing in the freeski and snowboard events.
New Zealand Olympic Team Selection will be complete by late January 2014.
The Sochi Olympic Games take place 7 23 February 2014.