Josh Hanlon overcame a difficult course to produce his best finish at a major international event.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After he finished 11th in the giant slalom at the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games on Thursday, following two eighth placings in the Snow Sports World Championships in January, the Weethalle sit skier finished sixth in the slalom on Sunday.
Hanlon was 11th after the first run, with only 27 of the 36 competitors able to finish the course.
He then produced the third best performance in the second run to help rocket him up the leaderboard.
Hanlon was thrilled with his performance.
"It's amazing," Hanlon said.
"I didn't think I would get that far up the order but we ended up where we did."
Only gold medal winner, Norway's Jesper Pedersen, who picked up a fourth gold for the games, and silver medallist Niels de Langen from the Netherlands, were able to deliver better times with their second runs as the conditions again proved tricky.
His time in the second run was over two seconds faster than bronze medal winner, Italy's René De Silvestro, with Hanlon finishing just over five seconds outside the medals overall.
READ MORE
Hanlon thought shaking off some nerves and adapting to the difficult conditions helped produce a much faster run.
"It wasn't a great first run but the second run was a bit better," he said.
"I climbed the order a little bit with a few DNFs (did not finish), way up the order really, so I'm pretty happy.
"I got those nerves out of the way again and the snow was a bit more forgiving this time, although it was a pretty shithouse course.
"It was so hard but I was a little bit less nervous, a little bit more centred and a bit more confident."
Only 16 of the remaining 27 competitors were able to finish their second runs, with Hanlon in the provisional lead for four runs.
It caps off a whirlwind few months for the 24-year-old who was yet to secure his place on the Australian team when he left for Europe just over three months ago.
Hanlon admitted the results were much more than he expected.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Download our app from the Apple Store or Google Play
- Bookmark dailyadvertiser.com.au
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters