Half Moon: A man cannot imitate a woman

Unlike the women, who had won two medals the day before, the Canadian women skaters were unable to reach the podium at Friday’s Half Pipe freestyle event at the Beijing Olympics.

In this final, the skaters had to take on an extra challenge with strong winds blowing over Genting Glacier Park.

Particularly affected were the representatives of the maple leaf, who, by combining the three subspecies of each, fell five times out of nine attempts.

Brendan McKay, one of the candidates on the Maple Leaf team for his victory on the World Cup circuit in 2021-22, crashed on his first attempt. The second time, everything was fine until the last jump, where a minor misalignment cost him several points.

Despite getting 65.50 points, all is not lost, as only the three best scores in the standings are kept.

Once again, Mackay looked like he was nearing a podium in his last run, but a crash in the last jump of his run smashed his chances. He eventually finished ninth overall.

For his part, Simon Dartois fell during each of his first two runs. In the end, a few technical errors cost him several precious points. He finally finished 10th with 63.75 points.

Bowman next door

Noah Bowman is the Canadian who finished the event with the best ranking, and fourth place. Thus he improves on his results gained in Sochi, in 2014, and in Pyeongchang, in 2018, placing fifth on each occasion.

At the Beijing Olympics, he first scored 84.25 points in his first round, before improving somewhat with a score of 84.75. But a fall last time wiped out his chances of getting on the podium.

He finished the match by two points over American Alex Ferreira, who won the bronze medal.

It was New Zealander Nico Porteus who moved up the podium, gaining 93.00 points on his first attempt. No one has passed him since. American David Wise took the silver with 90.75 points in his first round.