Gillings Joins McKenna in Worlds Top 3
7th January 2004Eighteen year old Zoe Gillings proved yesterday that she has every chance of following her more experienced snowboarding compatriot, Olympian Lesley McKenna on to the top of the sport's world rankings.
While McKenna has taken residence at the top of the world's Half-pipe league and will not be challenged until her next World Cup half pipe event in Kreischberg, Austria later this month, Isle of Man based Zoe vaulted to third place in the Snowboardcross world ranking with a sixth place yesterday in Bad Gastein.
Remarkably British female snowboarders are now ranked 1 and 3 in the world in their respective disciplines.
It was a race of highs and lows for Zoe, who was fourth in her first world cup in Canada before Christmas. She started brilliantly as second fastest in the qualifying run on a very difficult course. The top 16 went through to the quarter finals where they race in heats of 4 with the top 2 progressing to the semis and finals respectively. The main way to describe the heats was by the unusually high number of falls on this difficult terrain.
Zoe was no exeception falling once in the quarter finals, twice in the semi's, only to miss the final by half a board's length, and once in the consolation final. Amazingly enough after all those falls she still managed to finish in an amazing sixth place out of 43 riders.
Zoe explained: "I was Œmade up¹ with qualifying in 2nd , and a 6th place at World Cup is great, but I know I should have made the final so do feel disappointed. Still, being 3rd place on the World Cup Standing is pretty amazing".
Results
1st Lindsey JACOBELLIS (USA)
2nd Dominque MALTAIS (CAN)
3rd Maria DANIELSSON (SWE)
6th Zoe GILLINGS (GBR)