If we go by the start of the day on Tuesday, Canada is in good hands in skiing.
After a superb downhill performance the day before, Jack Crawford finished sixth in the men’s super-G event at the Beijing Olympics.
Aged just 24, Crawford was in good position to step onto the podium, but a slight mistake midway through his descent cost him precious hundredths of a second.
Crawford posted a time of 1:20.79, making him the fastest Canadian in the event. He finished 85 hundredths of a second behind Austria’s Matthias Mayer, the gold medal winner.
Crawford surprised many in the downhill on Monday when he finished fourth. He was just seven hundredths of a second behind Mayer, who won the bronze medal.
Trevor Philp of Calgary briefly lost his stick on his run but recovered to post a time of 1:21.34. He finished the super-G in 10th place.
Thirteen skiers were unable to complete their run at the National Alpine Skiing Center in Yanqing, including Canadians Broderick Thompson and Brodie Seger.
In the women’s freestyle ski jump event, young Canadian Megan Oldham pulled off two very fine maneuvers and finished just off the podium.
The 20-year-old Oldham took first place after qualifying on Monday. Twenty-four hours later, she amassed 178.00 points, 5.50 less than the Swiss Mathilde Gremaud, bronze medalist, and 10.25 less than the Chinese Eileen Gu, champion of the event.
Oldham notably managed a “double 1080 switch” in competition for the first time in his career. 17-year-old Quebecer Olivia Asselin also gave it her all, at her first Olympic Games.
Asselin performed well on her third and final jump and finished eighth with a total of 147.50 points.
Asselin secured his qualification for the Olympics only in January, thanks in particular to two top-5 finishes this season on the World Cup circuit, in slopestyle and in the long jump.
Asselin and Oldham will also compete in the slopestyle events on February 13 and 14.