Jasey Jay Anderson has been unstoppable for the past couple of weeks and shows no signs of slowing down. He not only claimed his fourth consecutive snowboard cross win yesterday, but today added another gold to his collection after taking the parallel giant slalom here at the Nokia Snowboard FIS World Cup in Sapporo-Makomanai, Japan.
Sitting in first place after the 16-rider qualifications, Anderson won both semi-final runs against Austrian Lukas Gruener and both quarter-final runs against the US's Jeff Greenwood.
In the finals, Germany's Markus Ebner was the only rider here today who looked as if he could challenge the Canadian bomber. Ebner took the lead in the first run and, despite a mistake, was ahead by 16 hundredths of a second, but couldn't hold on in the second run when Anderson attacked, sending him to the final duel by a margin of 14 hundredths of a second and relegating Ebner to the consolation run.
Sweden's Daniel Biveson met Anderson in the decisive duel and the Canadian won the first run with a lead of 1.23 seconds. Biveson looked as if he could pull it together in the second run, making up some time though not enough, finally ceding the win to Anderson by three-quarters of a second.
"This win means a lot to me," a smiling Anderson said, "much more than any in snowboard cross. It was my first in parallel racing in two years so it feels great. It really was fun racing today, good riding, good turns, but it was a struggle all day also. They pretty much all got me to work for my money and I am not sure if they were just fast or if I was a bit slow. Now I'm looking forward to next week — I will definitely push for a win there..."
Biveson was all too familiar with Anderson's strength after the World Championships, but unlike those races two weeks ago, he could not catch up. "It is always fun racing him," the Swede said, "he is a really good guy and he is very fast. It tried my best but his lead from the first run was just too big to make it up..."
American Christopher J. Klug triumphed over Ebner in the small final for 3rd place when the German could not finish the first run after he broke a binding.
"I really felt like I rode well today," Klug said, "I had seven-and-a-half good runs but you need eight good runs to win. I lost this little piece in the second run of the semi finals against Biveson, lost my focus for a minute, and he got in front of me so I didn't run my own race but was watching him instead. I came up about ten gates short today, a little disappointing but third isn't bad and there was a lot of good riders here today so I'm happy."
French rider Mathieu Bozzetto was knocked out in the first round of 16 and ended up in 10th place but could still defend the lead in the Parallel World Cup. Sweden's Richard Richardsson and Slovenian Dejan Kosir did not advance any further either and remain in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, in the standings.
In women's racing, Steffi von Siebenthal from Switzerland has qualified for the PGS finals a couple of times but has never made it to the final duel. She did today and finally took the win.
She was racing Margherita Parini in the heat for 1st and 2nd place and was behind the Italian by 83 hundredths of a second after the first run. When Parini made a mistake in the second run, Siebenthal made her move. "It was great riding today," she said. "It became hard when the light turned down and the snow almost had the same color as the sky, but we all should be able to stand such things. My riding was good but I had a bit of luck too."
Parini pulled 2nd and was pleased. "I do not understand why I crashed again," she said, "but the good thing is that I am improving. I know I can do it and I am getting better in keeping my form until the end of a race."
Austria's Manuela Riegler beat US rider Sondra van Ert in the small final for 3rd place.
French rider Karine Ruby missed the finals and pulled 20th but keeps the lead in the standings ahead of Italy's Carmen Ranigler, 5th today, and US rider Rosey Fletcher who was beaten by Parini in the round of 16 and took 13th place.
A halfpipe contest will be on tomorrow before the riders leave for the second Japanese stage in Asahikawa on Monday.
— Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent
