Seamus O’Connor misses out on Sochi final but nails triple cork

Despite a much improved showing in this morning’s slopestyle semi-final at Rosa Khutor, Irish snowboarder Seamus O’Connor missed out on qualification for the Winter Olympic final in Sochi.

After a nervous opening day on Thursday when he posted scores of 33.5 and 44.0 (out of 100), O’Connor came back today much more settled and caught the judges’ eye with scores of 60.75 and 70.25.

The highest score counts in slopestyle so his second run of 70.25 was good enough to rank him ninth out of the 21 riders battling it out for the remaining four final places.

It was a personal best score for the 16-year-old from San Diego and it came on the back of him landing the biggest trick of his life - a triple cork on the final jump.

Having failed twice to stick the landing on Thursday, O’Connor was delighted to pull it off here. So impressed was the crowd at the Extreme Park that there were audible groans when O’Connor’s score flashed up on the board, with a general consensus that landing a triple at the end ought to have garnered O’Connor a higher score from the judges.

That said, with only the top four making the final, O’Connor would have needed an extra 15 marks from the judges to qualify.

Nonetheless, this performance will move O’Connor up the world rankings and if nothing else, he has done what he came to Sochi to do to. If you’d offered him an Olympics in which he’d land a triple in competition at the start of the week, he’d have taken your arm off.

“I wasn’t really quite sure how it was going to go,” said O’Connor, whose next outing is in Tuesday’s half-pipe competition. “But it came out in the end. I was able to land it. So I couldn’t be more happy.”

American Sage Kotsenburg rode an almost flawless first run in the final to win the first gold medal of the Games and the first ever in the debuting discipline.

“I’m really excited,” said Kotsenburg after scoring 93.50. “It feels awesome. I don’t know what to call it. I have no idea what’s actually going on. This is the craziest thing that ever happened.”

Staale Sandbech's second run snatched silver for Norway with 91.75, while Canadian Mark McMorris, who was awarded 88.75 for his second run despite riding with a broken rib, took the bronze.

There was a nervous wait for all three when the score for the final competitor, world number one Max Parrot, was delayed but his 87.25 was only good enough for fifth.