Just under 70 athletes took on the parallel giant slalom course in conditions that included driving blizzard, limited visibility and high winds as the FIS Freestyle & Snowboard World Championships continued in New Zealand. However, determination won through and Edwin Coratti (19) of Italy and Annamari Chundak (20) of Ukraine took out the World Championship titles.

Chundak, who has a world ranking of 36, clocked the fastest women's qualifying time while Lukas Mathies (19) of Austria, ranked 28 in the world, was the fastest men's qualifier. Chundak managed to hold onto her lead throughout the event to take the overall title.

"The weather was horrible but we train in all different conditions so it didn't affect me so much," said Chundak. "It was a very tough competition but I believed in myself and now I am so happy to be world champion."

Julie Zogg (SUI) took silver and Ina Meschik (AUT) took bronze in the ladies' race.

Mathies fought hard through the finals but it was Edwin Coratti who pipped him to the post by just hundredths of a second. "It was a great day," said Coratti. "Lukas was my closest rival and it was very hard racing against him but I did it!"

Konstantin Shipilove (RUS) and Stefan Baumeister (GER) took silver and bronze respectively.

The Snowboard alpine events continue Friday with the parallel slalom at Snow Park NZ with a start time of 9.00am with finals scheduled for 12 noon.

FIS news
25/08/2010

PSL titles to Russia and Austria in New Zealand

Two more alpine snowboarding junior world champions were decided Friday 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 Thursday'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 the giant slalom, a dream that was shattered when he fell. Friday he was in the finals against  newly crowned PGS 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 ladies' 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  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 Schoeffmann. "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 Saturday for the ski cross, starting at 10.00am with finals scheduled for 12 noon.

FIS news
26/08/2010

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