Silver on the slopes

NSWIS snowboarders Nate Johnstone and Holly Crawford have both claimed silver medals in their respective snowboard half-pipe events at the 2011 Calgary World Cup.

Johnstone faced another enthralling battle against Japan’s Ryo Aono, his main rival to take overall world cup honours, but could not match the outstanding display from his Japanese competitor.

Johnstone tallied 27.7 points in his first run but could not match Aono’s 28.3 point second run after failing to cleanly land a 1080 spin.

Crawford was in the same boat as Johnstone, having to secure a win to make inroads into Xuetong Cai’s overall world cup lead.

Despite performing solidly, Crawford was unable to match her Chinese competitor, who now holds a 1700 point lead which will be near-impossible to track down.

The next world cup event takes place in Bardonecchia, Italy on March 11.