Aj, how close it was. Kwiatkowski cut the pole in the quarter-finals

In the qualification of the parallel slalom, the Poles found themselves paired. In terms of competition, it did not matter too much – 16 competitors with the best times could be promoted to the 1/8 final. And it seems that the fact that they are both competing with each other could only help them.

The journeys of both Michał Nowaczyk and Oskar Kwiatkowski were excellent. They both performed very well on both the blue and red routes. And it brought a great effect – Kwiatkowski took 5th place in qualifying, less than a second behind the fastest Korean Sangho Lee. Micha³ Nowaczyk was the 7th, just over 0.1 seconds behind Kwiatkowski.

The competition in the 1/8 final was started by Kwiatkowski, whose rival was Italy – Mirko Felicetti. The Pole started the competition much better, gaining a significant advantage. Later, the fight was compensated by a mistake unexpectedly made by Kwiatkowski. When it was announced that the fight would go on to the very end, Felicetti fell down and was disqualified, and his time was not counted.

Nowaczyk was not so lucky as he lost to Austrian Alexander Payer. Although the fight on the route was even, in the end Payer reached the finish line by 0.9 seconds ahead of our competitor.

Kwiatkowski was eliminated in the quarterfinals of snowboarding

In the quarter-finals, Kwiatkowski’s rival was Tim Mastnak, a Slovene. Almost to the end it was an incredibly well-balanced race. Almost, because at the end of the route, the Pole cut the pole, did not make the turn, which made him disqualified and his time was not counted.

Kwiatkowski did not start the race well, because at the first timing point he was 0.31 seconds behind his rival. In the second part, however, the Pole managed to make up for some of the losses, reducing them to 0.19 seconds. A mistake made by Kwiatkowski unfortunately resulted in his defeat.

To sum up, Kwiatkowski ended the Olympic competition in the best eight, and Nowaczyk in the sixteenth place.

Kwiatkowski’s rival – Mastnak – was promoted to the big one in the final. In it, the Slovene experienced a drama. Mastnak had a great advantage from the beginning and it seemed almost certain that he would reach for the gold. However, on the last two poles the Slovene made two fatal mistakes which made his rival Benjamin Karl from Austria become the Olympic champion.

The third place was taken by the representative of the Russian Olympic Committee – Wiktor Wild – who defeated Roland Fischnaller from Italy in the small final.