Canada's Hosking, D'Hondt advance to women's snowboard halfpipe final
Hosking places 9th with bounceback 2nd run, D'Hondt finishes 10th
Canada's Elizabeth Hosking and Brooke D'Hondt are through to the final in the Olympic women's snowboard halfpipe event after finishing in the top 12 in qualifying on Wednesday in Beijing.
Needing to at least best the 65.75 score of American Maddie Mastro to qualify, Hosking, of Longueuil, Que., finished with a top score of 70.50 on her second run to secure a ninth-place finish in the qualifying runs.
The 20-year-old took a fall on the first go, before making a comeback to finish out the run, garnering a score of 10.00.
Following the event, all she could feel was a sense of relief.
WATCH | Hosking, D'Hondt move on to snowboard halfpipe medal event:
"Relieved. The Olympics, you want to prepare and you just don't know how you'll actually be up top. I'm not going to lie, I was definitely nervous up top," said Hosking. "But I'm just happy to have pulled it together. This event is actually like [the] cherry on top for me. [I] had a really good season this year, so I'm just excited to head into another finals.
"On [the] first run, unfortunately, I pushed a little too much on my first hit, on my crippler. And second run, I was able to do crippler to back five to front seven, cap seven. I had some pipe left so I did some nice little straight-airs. I'm excited to also bump it up for finals."
Hosking made her Olympic debut at the age of 16 at the 2018 PyeongChang Games where she finished 19th in the halfpipe. Hosking was the youngest Canadian athlete at those Olympics.
This time it was D'Hondt making her Olympic debut as a 16-year-old. She pulled a score of 69.25 to sit in eighth following the first qualification run. She improved on her score with her second run posting a score of 70.00, eventually placing 10th.
The Calgary native is the youngest athlete at the Games representing Canada.
"I woke up and I had a pretty good feeling this morning. I knew that if I just stayed relaxed and trusted in my riding it would go alright," D'Hondt said.
"I think I came here and I did what I wanted to do, so I'm super happy."
Of the 22 competitors in the competition, only 12 move on to the medal event. The top score between the two runs for the snowboarders are taken as the score their ranking will be based upon.
The women's halfpipe final is set to take place at 8:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
All competitions will be streamed live on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports' Beijing 2022 website.
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