Olympic snowboarder with Ramona ties finishes 15th overall in halfpipe

Teenage snowboarder and former Ramonan Seamus O’Connor, who represented Ireland at the Winter Olympics in Russia, came close to making the finals in the men’s halfpipe on Feb. 11.

After qualifying for the semifinals, he posted a score of 54.00 in the first run, enough for fourth overall at that stage with the top six advancing to the final, but he couldn’t improve on his score in the second run and finished ninth out of 12 competitors, posted the Olympic Council of Ireland on its website.

“Well done Seamus, you did us proud,” stated Team Ireland on its Facebook page.

“This is my first Olympics and I’m 16. I guess I should just be happy that I was able to do it fairly well,” he was quoted on the Olympic Council’s site. “At the same time, I’m really quite upset that I’m not joining my friends in the final.”

Overall, Seamus finished 15th in the halfpipe, and 17th in the slopestyle event where he was the youngest entrant. During the slopestyle semifinals he landed his triple cork, which was only the third time he attempted it, having tried it during the qualifications round.

“I’m so excited I can’t even talk. It’s amazing,” he said on a video after the run.

Seamus is the son of Kevin O’Connor, who owns a rehabilitation center in Ramona for brain-injured adults. He was eligible to participate on Team Ireland because his paternal grandparents hail from Dublin and Drogheda. His mother is from an area of Russia near Sochi.

“I hope that the Irish will look kindly on his efforts,” Kevin O’Connor said in an email to the

The O’Connors live in Point Loma.