A second gold medal of Blair Esson from USA

Competitions in halfpipe were held today in the alpine skiing complex “Khvoyny Urman” in Khanty-Mansiysk. Gold medals were won by Ryoko Hanashima from Japan in women’s competition and Blair Esson from USA in men’s competition.

Ryoko Hanashima showed very good results in both attempts of qualifications and was the best in finals as well, getting 83,3 points and 79,4 points. The silver medalist Mayako Okawa from Japan received 69,7 points in her best attempt. Two Russian athletes – Ella Shevlyakova and Svetlana Anisimova – were competing for the bronze medal. In qualifications Ella Shevlyakova was second (73,3 points in her best attempt) and Svetlana Anisimova was 4th (60,7 points). However, in finals Ella did not manage to demonstrate the same level of snowboarding as in qualifications. She got 60,7 points for her best attempt, while Anisimova received 64 points in the best try.

As a result Svetlana Anisimova got her second bronze of these Deaflympics. It is to be reminded that on March’29 she won bronze in slopestyle.

In men’s competition the main favorites in the discipline were brothers Sean and Blair Esson. They showed their perfect snowboarding skills both in qualifications and in finals. Eventually Blair Esson won gold (90,3 points in his best attempt in finals). His brother Sean Esson got silver with 84,0 points. The bronze medalist is Yasutomo Tsukui from Japan (81,0 points).

The best result of Russian team was shown by Alexey Ignatenko who was 4th in finals (73,7 points).

It is worth noting that Blair Esson is now a two-time champion of Deaflympics 2015. On March’29 he got gold in slopestyle while his brother Sean was a bronze medalist in slopestyle.

Tomorrow, on April’02 deaf snowboarders will have their day-off. The participants of Deaflympic competitions on the alpine skiing complex “Khvoyny Urman” will continue their fight for medals only on April’03. Masters of hard disciplines of snowboarding will compete in parallel slalom.