Despite the conditions, St. Peter appeared to enjoy the halfpipe today and swapped the rain with beautiful sunshine on the "Grande Motte" glacier. It seemed that the day would never end. We were finally able to return to the valley just before sun down.
The Olympic halfpipe medalists, Gian Simmen, Daniel Franck and Ross Powers signed up to drop into the pipe today, but Simmen was the only one to claim a medal. He ranked third after the qualifications but took the lead after the final first run and added a better score in the second which brought him his first-ever World Cup gold.
He went on to say, "I am stoked! It was so much fun racing today with those nice conditions. From the experience during the training days, I expected it to be foggy and windy, but when I looked outside this morning there was sunshine all over and this seemed to have motivated me a lot. Otherwise they did a good job here with the preparation of the pipe. They used a superpipe dragon — which is what I rode when I was here for a summer camp two years ago. That was fun too!"
Kentaro Miyawaki from Japan stole second place and couldn't express his emotions. "This is my best result after the win in Berchtesgaden last season," he stated. "I did not like the training in the fog, but I had so much fun today with all that sunshine. The cold did not affect me much. In fact I was rather hot since I wanted to do well today."
Sweden's Stefan Karlsson took third with just one complaint, "It took far too long...we always had to wait in the start gate before we could pop in..."
Being ranked first after qualifiers, Daniel Franck was the number one contender for a win today but he failed when he crashed in both final runs and ended the day in 11th place.
Ross Powers missed the finals and finished 18th as the top US rider.
Olympic silver medallist Stine Brun Kjeldaas of Norway won the women's contest after collecting top scores in both the first and the second run. "I did not know where I was standing compared to the other girls," she said after the race. "It was my first competition this year so I am really happy. The others were riding so well, like Doriane Vidal, especially in the qualification and I am glad I made it. In fact, I am stoked! It has been such a great day after the horrible conditions the days before, so the riding was a lot of fun."
Finland's Minna Hesso crashed during her first run but moved up to second place with her second run and finished ahead of Doriane Vidal from France. "That result works for me, although I was going big in the qualification and was confident for a good result in the finals," she said. "I was first after the qualifications where I was going really big, so I was quite confident for the finals and wanted to take some more risk. In the first final it did not work and I had some problems half way down. In the second run I went even bigger than this morning but but made another mistake again and could not get enough speed again. But again, today's result works all right for me."
The Giant Slalom will conclude World Cup opening tomorrow...check back then.
— Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent
