With five Olympic medals, Sadowski-Synnott is tied for the second-most decorated New Zealand Olympian alongside equestrian Mark Todd and kayakers Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald.
“What a special athlete and person. Zoi’s just amazing, and she does it time and time again,” coach Tom Willmott told Sky Sport.
“So much pressure, coming from behind, a few issues there in the first couple of runs. I’m just stoked. So proud of her and all of the team.
“She had it in her, for sure. She had a winning run capability in her. You’d have seen just a little error on the third rail in section two, just came off a little bit early and that was the difference between silver and gold.
“But how epic to just put that down under pressure and come through. I’m super stoked.”
Sadowski-Synnott put down three solid runs in the final, with a first-run 73.01 having her sitting in third after the first round.
While she improved with a 77.61 second run, that was only good enough to have her sitting in fourth by the end of the second round.
But with all the pressure of needing to put down a run that counted, Sadowski-Synnott did what she has so often done in the past and earned the score she needed.
In the men’s snowboard slopestyle final, held earlier in the day, Kiwi Dane Menzies finished seventh with a best score of 76.10.
Like Sadowski-Synnott, Menzies was the top qualifier, however he wasn’t able to find a medal-winning run in the final.
Chinese rider Su Yiming took gold with a score of 82.41, ahead of Japanese athlete Taiga Hasegawa on 82.13 and American Jake Canter on 79.36.
How the action unfolded
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
