![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sinead-O-133x133.png\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Sinead O’Carroll<\/p>\n
Reports from Bormio<\/p>\n
IT WASN\u2019T PRETTY or perfect but Irish skier Cormac Comerford survived a tough Olympic challenge in the slalom event in Bormio today and is sitting in 35th (out of 95) after his first run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He, unlike 51 of his fellow competitors, completed the course and thus earned the right for a second go this afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wearing bib number 58, the Dubliner left the gate with a surprising opportunity to secure a top 30 position but a mistake just before the halfway point slowed his run completely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After missing a gate, he had to turn his skis around and go uphill to ensure he could finish with a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The effort contributed to the 11.73-second time differential between him and the current leader, Norway\u2019s Atle Lie McGrath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The event, already tagged as one of the most wide open of the entire Games in terms of how the podium will look, is now even less predictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five of the top 15 ranked athletes failed to navigate the 72 gates successfully. Among them was the giant slalom gold medallist, Brazil\u2019s Lucas Braathen Pinheiro.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the 95 starters, there are only 44 who will take on the second run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was no consensus among race watchers in Bormio whether the weather conditions were affecting the competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some believed the snow falling as the event continued was hampering visibility for the athletes, while others put it down to tough gate positions, skiers pushing for great times on tired legs and Olympic pressure.<\/p>\n
Comerford himself was happy with the \u201cmanageable slope\u201d and the conditions.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe visibility is a bit tricky but the lights on the slope help a huge amount to get a bit of extra contrast. To be fair to the organisers, they\u2019ve done a really good job of keeping the track in good condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Olympics has always been an extremely difficult race.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are just a few \u2013 one or two \u2013 quite technical turns and challenging sets there, and it caught a lot of people out, and it caught me out as well,\u201d he told reporters afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With so many top contenders falling foul of that \u2018diagonal verticali\u2019 section, the 29-year-old was frustrated he fell foul of it too, especially given he was the 58th starter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have picked up and maybe put a little bit more attention into nailing that section. But yeah, no point dwelling \u2013 there\u2019s another run to go and we\u2019ll give it another good effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
And picking up on some positives, he added: \u201cGenerally the attitude was good and after the mistake I gave it welly so hopefully I made up a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current top 30 men ski first, from 12.30pm Irish time, with 31 to 44 following straight after. The times of the two runs are combined for final placings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the start of the season, Comerford\u2019s aim was to compete in all four disciplines of alpine skiing at the Olympics and finish in the top 30 in slalom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of those goals is now complete. The second is within his reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinead O’Carroll Reports from Bormio IT WASN\u2019T PRETTY or perfect but Irish skier Cormac Comerford survived a tough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[142464,142465,137697,61,60,142466,112,23196],"class_list":{"0":"post-300947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alpine-skiing","9":"tag-bormio","10":"tag-cormac-comerford","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-slalom","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-winter-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}