Katharina Liensberger was on Tuesday talking to reporters in the mixed zone when she learned that her silver medal in the parallel event had been upgraded to a tie for gold at the Alpine skiing world championships.
The Austrian fell to the snow in celebration.
“I just cannot believe it, but it’s true,” Liensberger said. “I was a little bit confused in the finish.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
There was plenty of confusion to go around as the parallel event made its debut at the world championships.
The format with skiers competing side by side on giant slalom-like courses is a TV-friendly spectacle meant to add more excitement to the championships.
The event has seen so many rule changes over the years that even organizers needed some time to sort out how to divvy up the medals.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The women’s two-run final between Marta Bassino and Liensberger ended in a tie, and organizers initially declared the Italian the winner, as she came from behind in the second leg.
However, that was an old rule which is not valid anymore, so the results were quickly changed to having two cochampions.
“Just 0.00 [on the clock], and then nobody knew what was going on,” Liensberger said.
There was no confusion over the result in the men’s final, where Mathieu Faivre won both runs against Croatian skier Filip Zubcic to earn France its first gold of the worlds.
Bronze in the women’s event went to France’s Tessa Worley, who defeated Paula Moltzan of the US.
“My best at world champs before this was [18th], so fourth is incredible,” said Moltzan, who finished runner-up in the only World Cup parallel event this season in November last year.
“I like the start gates,” Moltzan said regarding why she is doing so well at parallel races. “As athletes we’re all super-competitive so I think this is an interesting way to bring it out of everybody and I had a lot of fun. I just like it.”
Loic Meillard won bronze for Switzerland in the men’s race, after beating Alexander Schmid of Germany in the small final.
A qualification round had reduced the field for both races to 16 skiers, with Petra Vlhova, Lara Gut-Behrami and Marco Schwarz among the most notable eliminations in that early morning session.
Several other big names had not entered the event, including Mikaela Shiffrin, Michelle Gisin, Alexis Pinturault and Henrik Kristoffersen.
“I think we all really like racing it,” Shiffrin said. “It’s more of a sort of tournament-style atmosphere; it’s just sort of electric for the whole race.”
Still, racing the parallel event at these worlds has never been an option for the American, mainly because she lacked time for the specific training required because of the unique start gate and course set.
“I do like the parallel event, but it’s still a difficult event to plan logistically. Even now there are definitely some things to sort through,” Shiffrin said. “The list of logistics that kind of create an issue is pretty long.”
This showed in Tuesday’s race.
Once again at a parallel race, the two courses were not equally fast, with almost all runs won by the skier on the red course.
The racers switched sides between runs to have one go at each course, but it was an advantage to have the faster course for the second run.
“It was the most unfair and absurd race,” said Federica Brignone, the overall World Cup champion, after losing in the quarter-final to Bassino. “Whoever started on the blue course in the first run had already practically won.”
Sharing the win with Liensberger, Bassino earned hosts Italy their first medal after seven events.
“Finally — we don’t have the crowd, but now I have a medal so I can think [about] the GS without pressure,” said Bassino, who is a favorite in today’s giant slalom after winning four World Cup races in the discipline this season.
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