Erin snowboarder Zoe Bergermann slipped out of the competition after knocking a gate during the quarterfinal run of ladies snowboard cross at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
In her first timed run Bergermann finished the 1.3km track in 1:21.57, putting her in 16th place.
Bergermann finished first in her second run, with a time of 1:18.65.
“My first timed run I messed up really bad, I knew right when I got to the bottom that it wasn’t a good run. I came up short on a few jumps and almost fell before the last jump. It was a bit messy for sure,” said the 23-year-old in an interview with the Advertiser.
“For the second run, my coach told me to go back to my training runs and focus on those. I cleaned up my run and finished almost three seconds faster than my first run. That felt good to know my time was up there with the top girls.”
She moved on to the quarterfinals, which pits six snowboarders against each other in a race to the finish line, with the top three from each of the four heats moving on to the semifinals.
Bergermann was placed in the second heat against fellow Canadian Tess Critchlow, American Lindsey Jacobellis, France’s Charlotte Bankes, Switzerland’s Lara Casanova and Mariya Vasiltsova, an Olympic athlete from Russia.
In the first big landing, Bergermann stumbled and nearly was thrown off course, knocking two other competitors off pace and clipping a gate with her board.
She finished the race in third, but was later marked “DNF” (did not finish).
“I fully believed I made it around the gate, so I kept racing and finished in third, which would have put me into the semi-final,” she said.
There was confusion over whether she would compete in the semi-finals.
“It was an emotional roller coaster because at the bottom they said, ‘yes’ I made it through,” she said.
“Then … I was … strapped in ready to go again, then they told me ‘no’ … That was the worst five minutes of confusion ever.”
Bergermann did not move on to the semi-finals.
There also seemed to be some confusion as to why she was eliminated.
The Canadian Snowboard team tweeted, “Your guess is as good as ours … everything looked good here,” to a viewer asking why Bergermann was disqualified.
The team later tweeted that Bergermann “is shockingly disqualified (still awaiting the official decision).”
But Bergermann is still happy with her competition.
“My Olympic experience has been so amazing – even better that I get to experience it all with my teammates,” she said.
She also thanked those watching from Erin.
“The amount of support from Erin has been so amazing. I can’t thank everyone enough for following along and cheering me on,” she said.
Italian Michela Moioli finished on the top of the ladies snowboard cross podium, while Julia Pereira De Sousa Mabileau of France grabbed silver and Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic finished third. Fellow Canadian Tess Critchlow placed 9th.
