IRELAND’S SEAMUS O’CONNOR has earned a top-10 finish at the 2015 Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle World Championships in Kreischberg, Austria this morning, marking a significant turning point in his young career.

The 17-year-old has been working on a number of new routines with coach Sam Wilkinson since reaching the semi-finals of both the men’s slopestyle and halfpipe at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

However, O’Connor produced the best slopestyle performance of his career to date in the semi-finals of the World Championships and in doing so qualified for today’s final with the second highest score – 90.33.

While O’Connor could only finish 10th with a score of 54.50, his achievement still promoted the Olympic Council of Ireland to declare that he had consolidated his position as one of the word’s best young snowboarders.

American Ryan Stassel took the gold with a score of 97.50, moving from fifth to first on his final run.

– First published 15.00

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