Get ready Prince George.
You could be watching another medal performance tonight from Meryeta O’Dine.
Our city’s first-ever Olympic medalist, who celebrated a bronze-medal win in the individual women’s snowboard cross event Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics, will get another chance to stand on the podium at the Secret Garden course at Genting Snow Park in Chongli, China.
Tonight, starting at 5:50 p.m. PT (CBC TV, streaming on CBC Sports app) the 24-year-old O’Dine is teaming up with 20-year-old Eliot Grondin of Sainte-Marie, Que., to represent Canada in the mixed team snowboard cross, one of seven new events at this year’s Olympics. Grondin won silver in the men’s individual event on Thursday, edged for gold by hundredths of a second by Alessandro Haemmerle of Austria.
Canada has two teams entered. Liam Moffatt of Truro, N.S., and Tess Critchlow of Kelowna are also racing tonight.
In the mixed team event, each team consists of one man and one woman. The men race each other first and the time difference in the men’s race is transferred to the women waiting in the start gate. Depending on when the male teammate crosses the finish, the gate is time-delayed and will drop according to that time difference to allow the female racer to begin her run. The first woman to the finish wins the race.
The quarter-finals consist of four heats.
O’Dine/Grondin are grouped in Heat 3 with Merlin Serget/Chloe Trespeuch of France, Jake Vedder/Faye Gullini of the United States and Daniil Donskikh/Kristina Paul of Russian Olympic Committee. Their race starts at 6:12 p.m. PT.
Moffatt/Critchlow are racing in Heat 4 (6:18 p.m. PT start) with Haemmerle/Pia Zerkhold of Austria, Lorenzo Sommariva/Caterina Carpano of Italy and Huw Nightingale/Charlotte Bankes of Great Britain.
Heat 1 (6 p.m. start) includes Omar Visintin/Michela Moioli of Italy, Martin Noerl/Jana Fischer of Germany and Loan Bozzolo/Julia Pereira de Sousa of France.
Heat 2 (6:12 p.m.) features Cameron Bolton/Belle Brockhoff of Australia, Nick Baumgartner/Lindsey Jacobellis of the U.S., Adam Lambert/Josie Baff of Australia and Kalle Koblet/Sophie Hediger of Switzerland.
Semifinals are scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. and the finals are at 6:50 p.m.
