Tess Coady wins Australia’s first medal at 2022 Olympic Winter Games

Team Australia was won their first medal at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. On Sunday, Tess Coady of Melbourne won the bronze medal in the women’s slopestyle snowboarding event. This was redemption for Coady as she qualified for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, but was unable to compete because of a torn ACL suffered in practice.

Coady posted a score of 84.15 points for the third best score in the event. Zoi Sandowski-Synott of New Zealand won the gold medal with a score of 92.88 points and Julia Marino of the United States won the silver medal with a score of 87.68 points. Sandowski-Synott became the first ever Olympic gold medalist for New Zealand in the history of the Olympic Winter Games.

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Heading into her final run, Coady had the third best score of 82.68 points. However she was able to show some improvement in her final run, and improve her score by 1.47 points. Coady delivered a Switch Backside 900 with her first major jump in the third run of the slopestyle snowboarding final. One must realize that Coady’s initial score was good enough to win the Olympic bronze medal. In her first run, Coady had a Backside 700, and a Double UnderFlip 900.

This was Australia’s 16th medal all-time in the history of the Olympic Winter Games and fifth medal ever in snowboarding. Torah Bright of Cooma won the gold medal in women’s halfpipe at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver  and a silver medal at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. Then at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, Jerryd Hughes of Sydney won the silver medal in the men’s snowboard cross, and Scotty James of Warrandyte won the bronze medal in the men’s halfpipe.