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Two young Aussie women have produced the performances of their careers on day 14 of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, with both Sami Kennedy-Sim and Kailani Craine shining.
In the women's ski cross, Kennedy-Sim put on a brilliant display before finishing eighth, one place short of equalling Australia's record performance in the event.
Kennedy-Sim was ranked ninth after Thursday's seeding, and after the withdrawal of an Italian athlete from her heat she was guaranteed to advance to the quarter-final as long as she made it to the finish.
In the semi-final, however, needing a top-two finish to reach the medal round, Kennedy-Sim started badly and lost a lot of time on her three rivals. She made up some ground before finishing third and missed out on the big final.
In her final race she finished fourth, to end up with eighth position overall.
Photo:
An eighth-place finish is a mighty impressive result for Sami Kennedy-Sim. (AP: Gregory Bull)
The result was a big improvement on Sochi four years ago, where Kennedy-Sim struggled and was ranked 28th — though the 2014 Winter Olympics came only one year after she suffered a career-threatening stroke.
"I feel like I did my best today and I left everything that I have out on the track today," she told Channel Seven.
"[It's] bittersweet. [It's the] best result of the season so far but would have been nice to be in the top four."
Meanwhile Craine, who qualified for the women's free skating after a fine debut performance on Wednesday, continued to win fans at home and abroad, finishing 17th overall.
A season-best score of 111.84, combined with her short program score of 56.77, saw Craine finish well outside the medals but above plenty of other highly-fancied skaters.
"I have no words," Craine said after the event.
"It's been such a good atmosphere and all the girls, we are all such good friends as well. We are all in it together and I am excited to be here and share it with such amazing people.
"I think this is good momentum mentally going into the World Championships.
"I'm happy that I not only came to the Olympics, but I did two solid programs. It couldn't be better for me."
Australian short track speed skater Daniel Greig finished 22nd in the 1,000m in 1 minute, 9.99 seconds — 2.04 seconds behind gold medalist Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands.
Topics: sport, winter-olympics, freestyle-skiing, korea-republic-of, australia
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