Belle Brockhoff suffers Beijing 2022 heartache in snowboard cross final as Lindsey Jacobellis finally finds form 16 years on

Snowboard cross can be a brutal sport.

Winning gold hinges on insane moments, be they impossible overtakes, a Bradbury-style leg-up thanks to an opponent's crash, or the sheer grit to see a gap and force your way through it.

Yet, just as athletes can ride a cascade of momentum, and their luck, through the rounds towards a medal, sometimes it can all be taken away just as easily.

Australia's Belle Brockhoff looked like she was going to ride a sequence of extraordinary races all the way to the medal podium on Wednesday afternoon at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou.

Unfortunately, her luck just ran out in the final where she finished fourth.

«Fourth is shithouse,» Brockhoff said in typically frank style.

«It's so shit. You're the loser of the big final. You just missed the podium by that much.»

Belle Brockhoff misses a medal in the women's snowboard cross, while Scotty James and Valentino Guseli book spots in Friday's halfpipe final at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

It is almost unnecessarily cruel that of all the athletes who make it through to the final, only one walks away empty-handed.

However, even making it to the final, a first for Brockhoff in her third Olympics, was an achievement after what had been a turbulent build-up to the competition.

«A lot of things didn't go my way,» Brockhoff said.

«I had a shit couple of days training. I had like a mental breakdown in front of my coach and sport [psychologist] and everything. It wasn't great at all.

»Yesterday, I had no runs where I made it down the course at all. I hit my head. I had all the wind knocked out of my lungs, and it just didn't go my way at all."

Even Wednesday morning's time trials did not go to plan, with Brockhoff finishing 19th after her first run, before