SNOWBOARD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. Alena Zavarzina (RUS) and Benjamin Karl (AUT) have grabbed Gold in the first parallel race of the 9th FIS Snowboard World Championships in La Molina, Spain.

In today’s parallel giant slalom, the 21-years-old girl from Novosibirsk impressed with some flawless riding defeating Austria’s veteran Claudia Riegler in the ladies’ final. “Zavi” thus tied on to a strong Russian performance tradition at World Championships in the recent past as team mates Ekaterina Tudegesheva had grabbed Bronze in 2009 as well as Gold in 2007 with Svetlana Boldykova adding a Silver medal in 2005.

In today’s battle for third, Doris Guenther (AUT) grabbed Bronze by edging off 2006 Olympic runner-up Amelie Kober (GER) by only 4 hundredths.

On the men’s side, Benjamin Karl underlined his role as top favourite by dominating the field. After the Austrian top gun had crowned himself Parallel Slalom World Champion in Korea 2009, he added his first ever PGS title to his belt today. In the final, Benji relegated Rok Marguc (SLO) to the second rank. Roland Fischnaller (ITA) rounded out the podium as third, with Kaspar Fluetsch (SUI) missing a medal as fourth.

According to his second WCS Gold, Karl said: “I’m so happy. I had so much fun today on the course. It’s unbelievable to be the World Champion again.” It was the sixth title for Austria after Siegfried Grabner (2003), Manuela Riegler (2005), Heidi Neururer (2007) and Marion Kreiner (2009) had added some more Gold medals to the OESV history books.

FISsnowboard.com
Wednesday 19 January 2011

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