The first Parallel Giant Slalom of the Nokia Snowboard FIS World Cup was held today in Ischgl, Austria, and demanded a lot of riders still feeling the pain of yesterday's parallel slalom racing. Mathieu Bozzetto from France, who has mounted a successful comeback after a knee operation, had feared he would not able to work it out again today, and this was his reality as he crashed in both runs and had to let any dream of taking two in a row go.
"I am not back at 100 percent again since I could not practice enough and this was proven today," Bozzetto said. "I have to pick it up again if I don't want to end up like this, but I really do not know what happened today..."
Another French rider was able to work it out. Nicolas Huet managed to make his way up to the final duel by beating his teammate Thomas Bourgeault, Swiss rider Philipp Schoch and Swede Daniel Biveson. In the finals, he met Austria's Werner Ebenbauer who looked as though he had the victory when he finished the first run 39 hundredths of a second ahead of the Frenchman, but he finally had to concede to Huet who just smoked the course in the second run.
"Another win for the French, that's perfect," Huet said, "but I do not think that there is no means to beat us... It was really hard work with all the runs yesterday and I do not like to think about another one tomorrow. The level pretty much improved and you cannot cool down any time during the race - it is always necessary to attack and push the limits."
Ebenbauer claimed the silver, but still seemed to have expected more.
"This result is fine for me, but I was going for a win when I got the first run under my belt," Ebenbauer said. Anyway, I will give it a try again tomorrow; I am really motivated."
Third place also went to Austria with Dieter Krassnig, who won both runs against Daniel Biveson in the consolation round. "I have pulled out two times this year already so I was very nervous," he said, "I never had problems in training or the qualifications but finals did not seem to be my thing until today. With good results at the end of last season, I felt a lot of pressure, but this should be off now, more or less."
After two parallel races, Nicolas Huet is leading the overall Parallel standings ahead of Bozzetto and Ebenbauer.
US rider Christopher J. Klug who had a liver transplant this summer turned up again today but pulled out when he had crashed in the first run and could not make it up in the second. "It was pretty scary this summer; it really was a big surgery," he said, "but I got a new liver end of July and I am a lucky guy, really lucky... At that time I was just hoping to return... I was just hoping to return to be able to live again, there was a bit of 'if' I would be able to make it or not. This is just three months later and I am snowboarding, my favorite thing in the world, so I am a pretty lucky guy. I am certainly grateful for that."
Lidia Trettel from Italy managed to claim her first win after more than one year. She faced her teammate Carmen Ranigler in the final and was happy to have worked it out. "This is amazing," she said. "I am using a new board and this works perfectly so I was very confident for today but I never expected a win. Ranigler pulled 2nd ahead of France's Karine Ruby and US rider Rosey Fletcher. Ruby took the lead in the overall standings, Trettel is in 2nd, Ranigler in 3rd.
A second Parallel Giant Slalom will be in tomorrow.
— Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent
