James Barnes-Miller’s snowboard cross campaign in his last Paralympics ended at the quarter-final stage on Sunday.
With the top-two going through to the semi-finals in the SB-UL class at Milano Cortina, Broadstairs’ Barnes-Miller lost grip and stumbled during his run while in third place. Although he did well to regain momemtum the damage was done and he finished last, 7.73sec behind winner Yonggang Zhu of China.
Dean van Kooij of the Netherlands booked the other semi-final place while Australia’s Sean Pollard was third.
Barnes-Miller had secured a strong position in the seeding after finishing fifth with a fastest time of 52.17sec over two runs earlier in the weekend, marking a two-second improvement on his first run.
“I made a mistake in turn four in the first run,” he said after Saturday’s sessions.
“I came over the roller a bit light and then folded in half so then you haven’t got any speed, it’s really hard to make it up again.”
Barnes-Miller returns to action on Saturday in the banked slalom.
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