Elizabeth Hosking and Brooke D’Hondt advance to snowboarding halfpipe final

The start of the day went off without a hitch for Canadian athletes at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday, as everyone who needed to go through qualifying advanced to the next round.

Longueuil’s Élizabeth Hosking and Alberta’s Brooke D’Hondt first qualified for the finals of the snowboard halfpipe event.

Hosking had a smooth second run, earning him a score of 70.50. This result allowed him to finish ninth in qualifying.

All riders completed two courses and only their best result was retained. Among the 21 participants, only 12 advanced to the final, which will take place on Thursday on the halfpipe of the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, northwest of Beijing.

As for D’Hondt, from Calgary, she had two good runs. She improved her score slightly in the second run, when her run earned her 70.00 points. She finished 10th in qualifying, just behind Hosking.

Men’s qualifying was later Wednesday. Only one Canadian was in the running: 18-year-old Albertan Liam Gill.

At the National Alpine Ski Center in Yanqing, the four Canadian skiers entered in the Beijing Olympics slalom qualified for the second run.

Ontario’s Erin Myelzinski was the best of the group with a 17th place finish with a time of 53.93 seconds, while Quebec’s Laurence St-Germain finished 22nd in 54.51.

Toronto’s Ali Nullmeyer and British Columbia’s Amelia Smart also reached the second set, which was held later Wednesday.

Only one medal was at stake at the start of the day at the Beijing Games on Wednesday, in the freestyle ski jump event.

The only Canadian present, the Ontarian Evan McEachran could not do better than a ninth place.

The Oakville native started the final well, however, with a jump that earned him 93.00 points and second place at the end of the first round.

McEachran, however, crashed on his last two jumps. Since the scoring system retained the two best scores, he finished the event with 115.50 points, far from the 187.75 points of Norway’s Birk Ruud, who won gold.

On Wednesday evening, several Canadians will fight for medals in short track speed skating.

At his fifth and final Olympic Games, 37-year-old Charles Hamelin could become the fifth Canadian Olympian to win six Olympic medals while competing in the 1,500-metre event.

Her teammate Kim Boutin, bronze medalist in the 500 meters on Monday, will try to put herself in a position to add to her harvest by participating in the preliminaries of the 1000 meters and the semi-finals of the women’s relay.

Earlier Wednesday, Quebecer Audrey McManiman posted the 13th time during the ranking session for the snowboard cross round of 16.

McManiman, a native of Saint-Charles-Borromée, took 13th place thanks to her descent of 1:24.98 minutes.

British Columbian Meryeta Odine was the top Canadian. She produced the 3rd fastest time in qualifying with a time of 1:23.01.

The classification session took place in a time trial format. The 32 snowboarders obtained their ticket for the round of 16.

The other Canadians in the running, Zoe Bergermann and Tess Critchlow finished 24th and 26th respectively.

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