SNOWBOARD. Omar Visintin (ITA) celebrated his career's first World Cup win in Schruns/Montafon, Austria, today.
 
In the men's final of the 2013 season's first snowboard cross competition of the FIS Snowboard World Cup, the rider from South Tyrol edged off local hero Markus Schairer (AUT) to the second spot. Nick Baumgartner (USA) rounded out the podium as third while reigning World Champion

SBX World Cup Montafon, AUT - Men - 1/8 Final #2 - Alessandro Haemmerle (AUT) in green, Michael Haemmerle (AUT) in red, Tony Ramoin (FRA) in blue, Maciej Jodko (POL) in yellow © Oliver Kraus

Alex Pullin (AUS) finished in fourth and thus last position of the four men final.
 
“It's just unbelievable. I don't get it yet,” said the young gun after his coupe.
 
The 23-years-old talent nailed his first ever triumph by powering out of the start gate first and kept hold to the leading position ever to the end of the course.
 
“I was expecting to being able to bring home a top result. But winning was and still is a dream. A dream which finally came true.”

SBX World Cup Montafon, AUT - Men - Team Italia celebrates Omar Visintin (ITA) © Oliver Kraus

With his win, Visintin continued a nice streak for Team Italia.
 
Two years ago Luca Matteotti had also claimed his first ever World Cup victory in the Vorarlberg region.
 
In December 2012 Visintin's team mate came in first in Lech.
 
Local hero gets second
 
Today, however, the track built by Adners Forsell (SWE) couldn't have been any longer as runner-up Markus Schairer was about to close the gap, already breathing down Visintin's neck.
 
In the end, it didn't work out for the 2009 World Champion anymore, but nevertheless, the rider from St. Gallenkirch, situated some five kilometres away from venue host Schruns, wasn't disappointed at all.
 
“It would be presumptuous to ask for the first rank after this race,” explained Schairer, who was actually pretty stoked with his outcome.
 
“It was fantastic. It's extremely hard to race in front of your home crowd. I'm super happy that it worked out like this.”
 
Ladies' race postponed
 
The ladies' time trials as well as final heats had to be postponed to Saturday due to the bad weather conditions and the small time window.
 
The event will kick off with the qualifiers on the Seebliga at Hochjoch at 9:35 AM.
 
The finals start at 11 AM. The Team SBX event will take place as scheduled at 1:30 PM.

FISsnowboard.com
Friday 7 December 2012