Blouin earns top five finish in slopestyle for third consecutive Olympics
Three-time Olympian Laurie Blouin narrowly missed the podium in women’s snowboard slopestyle on Wednesday.
Blouin’s third and final run in the slopestyle final was awarded a score of 68.60, placing her fifth overall.
The result marked the third top-five finish of Blouin’s career. She won silver in slopestyle at PyeongChang 2018 and finished fourth at Beijing 2022.
In the qualifying round on Sunday, the two-time World Champion put together a solid run to score a 69.30, putting her in ninth ahead of the final.
Blouin’s opening run was clean, composed, but it looked as though she was saving her best for the final.
In slopestyle, snowboarders perform three runs. Only their highest score of the three runs is taken into account for the overall standings.
In her first run on Wednesday, Blouin couldn’t land a frontside 1080 cleanly on her second jump, forcing her to bail on her final jump.
It was the same story during her second run, this time a mistake on a double cork 1080, forcing her to settle with two scores well under the podium.
Unphased, the veteran ended these Olympic Games on a high note with a clean run top to bottom on her third try.
She landed a frontside double-cork 1080 for her second jump, and a backside 720 in her final jump to finish with the score of 68.80.
“I’m good. I mean, for sure it’s not the full run I wanted, but my last jump was supposed to be a backside line, but I had to adjust mid-run because I was feeling really slow. But yeah, I’m happy I landed one,” said Blouin.
“It wasn’t the cleanest, but I still landed a run. And yeah, it was really tough out there for the speed.”
In the end it was Japan who took home a double podium, with Mari Fukada winning gold, and Kokomo Murase winning bronze. Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand took home silver.
Juliette Pelchat, a first-time Olympian, was the only other Canadian to qualify for the final.
The 21-year-old’s final round score of 51.76 placed her ninth overall.
She mentioned conditions made things a little slow for competitors.
“It was mainly the speed, which is the main factor,” she said following her run.
Despite less than optimal conditions, Pelchat felt the magic of her Olympic debut, and will be poised to return for Canada.
“I’m really happy that I tried my hardest and it was an error because of the speed. I put all my energy into landing a run.
“The Olympic experience has been incredible, honestly, like I tried to be present in the moment every chance I could and just take a pause to take it all in, and I’m super lucky to be where I’m at.”