Posted February 22, 2018 19:04:07

Photo: Sami Kennedy-Sim is well placed after the seeding round of the women's ski-cross. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)

Australia's Sami Kennedy-Sim has put herself in with a shot at a top-10 or even top-five finish after the seeding section of the ski-cross competition on day 13 in Pyeongchang.

On a mixed day for the Australian competitors at the Winter Olympic Games, Kennedy-Sim recovered from a slow reaction to be sixth quickest at the first intermediate point.

By the end of the course, she finished in one minute 14.97 seconds — 1.86 seconds shy of Canadian leader Marielle Thompson.

She was just over a second slower than the fifth-fastest seed, Switzerland's Fanny Smith, and 1.41 seconds back from the third-fastest skier, another Canadian Brittany Phelan.

Of course, time is only one part of the ski-cross competition, with staying out of trouble and avoiding crashes equally — some would say more — important.

In Sochi, Kennedy-Sim failed to progress, finishing ranked 28th.

This time around, the Australian looks capable of a much-higher placing.

In the women's combined downhill, Australia's Greta Small failed to finish the competition, after she lost control and missed a gate on the downhill leg of the event at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre.

Small, who finished 20th in the women's downhill on Wednesday, after coming 31st in the super-G earlier in the alpine skiing program, was 0.92 seconds off the leaders at the third intermediate checkpoint, before sliding out to end her competition.

American veteran Lindsey Vonn led after the opening downhill component, but as the last competitor on the course in the slalom, she lost control early on to end her Olympic chances.

Swiss skier Michelle Gisin won the gold medal, from Vonn's teammate Mikaela Shiffrin in silver and another Swiss competitor, Wendy Holdener, in the bronze medal position.

Over at Yongpyong Alpine Centre, there was chaos at the men's slalom, with only 52 of the 106 starters completing the course on the first run.

Among those to fail to finish was Australian Dominic Demschar, who did not get past the first gate on the course.

"[My ski] hooked a little more aggressively than I was expecting to," he said. "The edge grabbed and then I went on the wrong side of the gate.

"It's happened to plenty of people before and it will happen to plenty more people after."

Topics: sport, winter-olympics, alpine-skiing, freestyle-skiing, korea-republic-of, australia