Melbourne schoolgirl Indra Brown has missed out in her quest to become Australia’s youngest Winter Olympic medallist at just 16, ending up fifth in the final of the freeski halfpipe on the last day of the Milan-Cortina Games.
The teen prodigy, who’s soared from nowhere to top the World Cup standings this season, had been hoping to provide a glorious flourish to Australia’s most successful Games by landing medal number seven.
But as winter sport’s biggest superstar Eileen Gu laid down two spectacular runs to take her third career Olympic gold, Brown certainly didn’t let herself down with a fine last-round run of 87.00 that thrust her from 10th place to fifth.
After bailing out of her first run when failing to land her first trick cleanly, the US-born Chinese Gu responded by delivering the best two runs of the competition in the subsequent rounds, 94.00 and 94.75, that none of her rivals could match.
China’s Li Fanghui came close with a spectacular final run of 93.00 to take the silver, while Britain’s Zoe Atkin also had a last-round crack with a 92.50 run to land bronze.
Brown, who hadn’t even seen a halfpipe this time four years ago, had been far from her best with her opening two runs of 55.50 and 65.00 in the 11-athlete final.
But when the pressure was on, she raised her game on the last run to finish just 5.50 points off the medal positions.
