Today Australian Snowboarder, and our youngest Olympian this year, Tess Coady was due to compete in the Women’s Slopestyle qualifications at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.
After completing a course inspection at 1200pm Coady sustained an injury on her first run in official training. The 17-year-old fell on her final jump of the run injuring her left knee.
She was immediately escorted from the course and attended to by the Australian Team doctor and physio who confirmed she had ruptured her ACL, meaning she will not be able to compete at the Games.
The qualification event went on to be cancelled for today due to high winds and rescheduled for tomorrow.
Coady, the youngest member of the 2018 Team at her first Olympic Games, expressed her disappointment.
“I am extremely disappointed with injuring my knee before I had the chance to compete,” she said.
“It’s a very difficult time but I’m getting great support from the medical team and my teammates.
“I’m going to work hard to come back even better in the future.”
Coady was the first Australian to win a FIS World Cup in snowboard Slopestyle with a bronze at Snowmass this season.
“I have no doubt Tess will be back for Beijing and many games after that” said Chef de Mission, Ian Chesterman.
“It was certainly her first run, the last jump of her first run that she got hurt and it’s frustrating and disappointing for her. Wind is definitely the enemy of winter sports athletes, it makes a difficult job even more difficult. Moguls tonight will have some wind and aerials later in the week.
Let’s hope it dies down so athletes can perform at their best. It’s part of the game, we deal with these elements all the time but you want it to be as good as possible so the real skill of the athlete gets to shine and the best person wins the medal.”
Chesterman suggested that the events of today should be reviewed based on the wind weather element to ensure in the future the athletes don’t have these problems.
“I think our athletes are pretty resilient to winter conditions” said Chesterman. “The fact the event was cancelled a review should take place as to whether training should have preceded it.”
Fellow Slopestyle competitor, Jess Rich, had pulled out of today’s competition due to an injury but is hoping to compete in the Big Air later in the week.
