The weather on the final day of the fourth FIS Snowboard World Championships was a consolation for what everybody had gone through almost all week. After heavy snowfall for the last couple of days, pure sunshine turned up at Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, for the Snowboard Cross.
The spectacular racetrack had a hip jump, leading on to some rollers right after the start, followed by a cork screw, a water jump, a huge table top, and two more bank turns which led to a step jump right before the finish.
French rider Karine Ruby made these Championships hers. After she missed claiming any medals at the World Championships two years ago, she made it up this time and after the wins in giant slalom and parallel slalom claimed her third gold this week by winning the snowboard cross today.
"This is awesome," she said, smiling, "and I did not expect this to happen when I got here this morning a bit tired from racing all week long. I took it kind of relaxed and mainly did it to have fun, but I enjoyed riding so much and got very confident the further it went. My major goal is to work on the parallel giantslalom now since this is the only one I missed this week, but I am pretty confident to pull that one together some time in the future also, especially with regard to the Olympics."
Her friend and strongest rival, Sandra Farmand from Germany, had been one of the contenders for a win today but she crashed in the qualification and had to let it go. "I do not understand what happened," Farmand said, "it worked much better in the qualifiers than in training and I was even faster also but that's life. I will try to make it up in the World Cup now."
French rider Emmanuelle Duboc, Junior World Champion in parallel slalom, took 2nd place while Dominique Vallee from Canada claimed the bronze.
Guillaume Nantermod, who is known as one of the best snowboard cross riders in the world, but who has not seen good results in the World Cup this season, won the men's competition.
Nantermod faced Markus Ebner from Germany, Austria's Alexander Maier and Sweden's Zonte Grundelius in the final heat and they all looked very close right after the start. Ebner, who had taken the early lead in all previous runs in the finals, looked as if he slept through the start and there was no way for him to close the gap on Nantermod until the finish.
"It was all about the start today," he explained, "and I also had a good position from my qualification result. That maybe has been the key today. The course was pretty hard to do and there have been quite a few crashes. I was lucky not to experience any interference with other riders. I am so glad I worked it out since this was my major goal this season."
Ebner finally finished 2nd and got the German team the only medal after three 4th place finishes this week. "This is just great," Ebner said. "I wanted to try to get a good run down, at least, after some bad luck for our team but I did not expect to go home with the silver medal. When Guillaume took the lead I tried to keep Alexander behind me and it worked. I am so happy with the result."
Maier came in 3rd and was obviously relieved. He has been doing very well all season but sometimes lacked the little bit of luck needed. "Now people start to say 'Alex is coming' instead of 'there he is, the little brother of the Herminator.'"
With the official closing ceremony, the World Championships at Madonna were concluded and people will recall the event for its exciting races (despite the mostly miserable weather), friendship, hospitality and good course preparation. The next event of this kind will be held in 2003 at Kreischberg, Austria.
— Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent
