One Weekend in Russia..

Friday saw the start of the 22^nd winter games in Sochi Russia, with the usual pomp, ceremony and fireworks that seem to be the norm for such an occasion. Despite the vast sums of money spent on the opening ceremony it’s not really what we have come to see. We are looking forward to the snow sports action, the traditional events such as downhill and the free sports such as Slopestyle.

Well the weekend didn’t disappoint with the Slopestyle snowboarders Jamie Nicholls and Billy Morgan kicking things off for team GB in the Slopestylefinal on Saturday morning, with Jamie finishing in sixth and Billy in tenth overall. Other snow sports highlights witnessed on Saturday were the amazing Dufour-Lapointe sisters from Canada, with all 3 sisters competing in the moguls and Justine and Chloe finishing gold and silver respectively.

Sunday came and with it the Winter Games’ Blue ribbon event, the men’s downhill. Anticipation was high with American, Bode Miller, sighting the course as one of the most technical Olympic Downhill courses he had skied.  But it was the Austrian outsider, Matthias Mayer, who clinched Gold having never finished in top 3 in any of his pervious downhill races.  Then came the Jones. After the emotions of the men’s Slopestyle final, excitement was running high for the women’s final, with our great hope, Jenny Jones, second in the running order. Her second run had her sitting in gold position with another ten riders to go. As contender after contender made there run she slipped down into Bronze with only one girl left to ride. As Austrian, Anna Gasser, put her hand down on the second kicker everyone went wild, the commentary  team going off the hook, team GB had done it. After ten years being pretty much at the top her game the Jones had done it, winning team GB’s first Snowboard medal. Well done Miss Jones !!!!