ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) -Japanese snowboarder Rina Yoshika suffered a heavy fall in training on the slopestyle course at the Genting Snow Park on Thursday and will return home, a Team Japan spokesperson said in a statement.
Yoshika crash-landed from one of the jumps during a practice run and lay motionless before a medical team rushed to help. She cried out in pain when they tried to move her.
It took almost 20 minutes for Yoshika, wearing training bib number 24, to be moved from the course on a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance.
Later on Thursday, the Japan Olympic Committee released a statement that said Yoshika had suffered an injury and would withdraw from both slopestyle and big air events, and return to Japan after receiving the necessary medical care in China.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor and Mari Saito; Editing by Ken Ferris and Bill Berkrot)
