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Canadian Audrey McManiman’s Olympic snowboard cross race ended earlier than she wanted Friday, missing out on the quarterfinals.
But the 31-year-old from St-Ambroise-de-Kildare, Que., was still able to celebrate the journey that brought her to the Milano-Cortina Games.
“I went through a year off with a second ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] surgery on my left knee,” said McManiman. “In total, my third ACL surgery but second on the left knee. I did my first ACL at 16 years old and the last ACL surgery at 29 years old. It’s not the same thing.”
“It was a lot of work to come back,” she added.
McManiman finished 11th four years at the Beijing games “without an ACL.” This time, she timed the latest surgery to be ready for Milan.
Josie Baff won gold, becoming the first Australian woman to claim an Olympic snowboard cross medal. She edged Czechia’s Eva Adamczykova, gold medallist in 2014 in Sochi and bronze medallist in 2018 in Pyeongchang, by four one-hundredths of a second.
Italy’s Michela Moioli, the gold medallist in Pyeongchang, took bronze.
All 32 women took part in the opening seeding run, making a solo trip down the course.
The top 20 finishers in the first timing run moved on, seeded one through 20. The remaining 12 competed in a second timing run to determine seedings 21 through 32.
The 32-year-old Adamczykova, who skipped the Beijing Games in 2022 to have a child, topped the seeding run at 1:12.29.
The 23-year-old Baff, who arrived in good form with two podiums in three World Cup races this season, only managed the 17th-fasted time.
McManiman was seeded 12th. As such she faced fifth-seeded Chloe Trespeuch of France, No. 21 Faye Thelen of the U.S. and No. 28 Remi Yoshida of Japan in the first knockout round, the 1/8 final with the top two progressing.
Trespeuch, a four-time Olympian who won silver in Beijing and bronze in Sochi, won the heat. McManiman was third most of the way before nosing her way into second, only to have the 33-year-old Thelen, competing in her sixth Olympics, overtake her.
“My snowboard riding was really good,” McManiman said. “For sure, I don’t like the number beside my name today. But I know I still have something to celebrate. It’s the whole past four years I have to celebrate with my family right now here in Italy.”
Mixed team event up next
Canadian Eliot Grondin won silver in the men’s race Thursday, edged out by Austria’s Austrian Alessandro Haemmerle for the second straight Olympics. The winning margin was just three one-hundredths of a second.
McManiman and Grondin will join forces Sunday in the mixed team snowboard cross event. Grondin won bronze with Meryeta O’Dine four years ago in the first Olympic mixed team snowboard cross event.
McManiman was the lone Canadian in the field Friday with O’Dine and Tess Critchlow both late injury scratches.
O’Dine, a 28-year-old from Prince George, B.C., fell in training Feb. 6 and fractured a bone in her ankle.
The COC announced Feb. 2 that Tess Critchlow was also withdrawing due to injury. The 30-year-old from Big White, B.C., who had undergone knee surgery in September, was ninth in Pyeongchang in 2018 and sixth four years ago in Beijing.
Not having training partners complicated preparations for McManiman. While she had the entire coaching staff supporting her, she had to ask athletes from other countries to team up with during training.
“Small negative stuff,” she said. “I still have [my teammates] in my mind today and I was racing for them.”
McManiman’s bespoke helmet only arrived the day before the race. It features snow owls [representing Quebec], wolfs and a giant Maple Leaf.
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