Snowboard: Mittermüller and Flemming crack Olympic norm

Silvia Mittermüller and Nadja Flemming broke the Olympic standard at the Big Air World Cup in Mönchengladbach. Although the duo missed the final of the top six in adverse weather conditions, they did meet the DSV’s Olympic qualification criteria with places nine and 16,”I’m just glad I landed my jumps,”said Mittermüller.

Mittermüller and Flemming had already secured half of the Olympic norm with places nine and 13 at the Big Air World Cup in Beijing. Big Air is Olympic for the first time at the games in Pyeongchang.

However, the fulfilment of the national standard does not mean that snowboarders have a starting place at the Winter Games. To do so, they would have to be among the top 30 athletes on an accumulated list of the FIS World Federation.

For Mittermüller it was the premiere at the home race, last year the best German freestyle snowboarder, plagued by injuries, had only commented the spectacle on television.

“There’s a little reason to celebrate now, because I’ve broken the German norm. But I don’t know whether I really made it until January,”says Mittermüller.

Austria’s World Champion Anna Gasser, who had celebrated her second victory of the season a week ago in Beijing, paused at the Arag Big Air Freestyle Festival to protect her damaged foot. The victory went to the Swiss Carla Somaini, who had already won the qualification.

The Norwegian Marcus Kleveland won the men’s race with an almost perfect score of 191.75 points.

The final of the top ten took place without German participation. For Maximilan Preissinger, Luis Eckert and Leon Vockensperger it was only 22,36 and 46, respectively.