Kotsenburg takes snowboarding gold as O'Connor misses out

Ireland's Seamus O'Connor came 17th in today's snowboarding Men's Slopestyle Finals at the Winter Olympics.

American Sage Kotsenburg stormed to gold in the first-ever snowboard slopestyle event at the games in Sochi.

O'Connor placed ninth in the earlier Semifinal, with a best score of 70.25 over two runs, after a score of just 40 in the qualification round.

However, only the top four semifinalists who had not already earned a place in the final qualified to proceed.

Great Britain's Billy Morgan pulled an impressive 90.75 in the Semifinal, placing him top of that round, but was unable to translate the performance into a medal, coming tenth in the final with 39.75.

His countryman Jamie Nicholls, who qualified outright in the first round, came sixth with 85.5.

Staale Sandbech of Norway and mark McMorris of Canada picked up silver and bronze respectively.