Maddie Bowman of South Lake Tahoe Makes U.S. Olympic Freeskiing Team
Submitted by paula on Sun, 01/12/2014 - 2:40pm
Maddie Bowman of South Lake Tahoe clinched a nomination to the first-ever U.S. Freeskiing Olympic team Sunday with a win in the halfpipe final at the Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix presented by The North Face at Breckenridge.
Adverse weather at the venue forced FIS officials to reschedule the finals twice, and snow fell on the halfpipe while Bowman, Ayana Onozuka of Japan and Aussie Amy Sheehan laid down the top runs of the day. Brita Sigourney (Carmel, CA) and Annalisa Drew (Andover, MA) finished just shy of the podium in fourth and fifth, putting Bowman in an unbeatable position in the qualification standings.
Her winning run included a Straight-air Japan, unnatural (rightside) 900, straight-air mute, rightside 540, leftside 540 mute, rightside 720 tail and switch 360 mute.
"I wish everyone had better conditions and we could really see the full potential of everyone, but I’m definitely stoked and I don’t think it’s hit me yet," said Bowman after her run.
The next stop on the way to Sochi, Russia is the Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix heads to Park City Jan. 17-18 for the final two qualification events.
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