Success in the Snowboard Parallel Slalom

Success in the Snowboard Parallel Slalom at Junior World Championships

LAKE WANAKA, New Zealand (August 27, 2010) – Two more alpine snowboarding junior world champions were decided today at Snow Park NZ in the parallel slalom with Russia’s Dimitry Bazanov (19) and Sabine Schoeffmann (18) of Austria taking out the male and female titles respectively

It was another highly competitive day of racing with conditions perfect compared to yesterday’s blizzards. A cold night set up well for hard, fast course for the 70 athletes taking part.

Bazanov said he came to New Zealand to win – his first goal was to win yesterday’s giant slalom, a dream that was shattered when he fell. Today he was in the finals against yesterday’s newly crowned world champion, Edwin Coratti of Italy. After the first run he got a delay penalty but managed to overtake Coratti in the final gates, securing the world championship title. Johann Stefaner (AUT) took the final place on the men’s podium in third.

“I wanted to win yesterday and it still doesn’t feel real that I am now world champion,” he said. “Edwin was a really strong racer but I knew, even with the time penalty I could beat him and I did – I’m so happy!”

The women’s race was equally competitive with Schoeffmann narrowly winning by just three hundredths of a second over Switzerland’s Julie Zogg who also took silver in yesterday’s giant slalom. Ekatarina Khatomchenkova rounded out the podium with bronze.

“I had a lot of luck today and the other girls were really good,” said Shoeffmann. “I was really surprised to win as I thought I’d do better yesterday but instead I won today – it’s a really great feeling to be world champion!”

The FIS Junior World Championship action moves to Cardrona Alpine Resort tomorrow for the ski cross, starting at 10.00am with finals scheduled for with the parallel slalom at Snow Park NZ with a start time of 10.00am with finals scheduled for 12 noon. For further information and full results, please visit www.juniorworldsnz.co.nz.

ENDS