Pick signs off PyeongChang preparations with World Cup Final medal

Owen Pick could scarcely have hoped for better preparations for the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games after picking up a bronze medal in the Para Snowboard World Cup Final.

The Brit, who will be heading to South Korea next month as part of ParalympicsGB, finished third in the banked slalom lower limb 2 impairment at the final round of the World Cup at the Big White resort in Canada.

Seventh after the first round, Pick clocked the second fastest run of the final round to jump up onto the podium in a race won by Japan’s Gurimu Narita.

His time of 1:16.31 was the third fastest time of the day and saw him pick up a confidence-boosting medal in his final event before PyeongChang.

Posting on Instagram after the race, Pick was clearly happy with a job well done.

Pick’s fellow Brits Ben Moore and James Barnes-Miller – who will be joining him in PyeongChang – finished fourth and ninth respectively in the upper limb impairment banked slalom.

Moore missed out on a medal by less than half a second after posting the fourth-fastest time in his first run, before being disqualified in the second.

Barnes-Miller clocked the fifth-fastest run in the second round but it was still 0.01s slower than his first-round effort, meaning he remained in ninth place – France’s Maxime Montaggioni taking the win.

Earlier in the week, the Brits had competed in the snowboard cross, with Barnes-Miller qualifying fourth fastest and Moore ninth best in the upper limb impairment category.

Moore then made it through his round of 16 race but Barnes-Miller lost out to the USA’s James Sides, with his compatriot falling to the same fate in his quarter-final against Montaggioni.

And it was a similar story for Pick, who qualified fifth-fastest before beating Canada’s John Leslie in the first round.

But Narita was too fast for him in the quarter-final and Pick exited the event.