Jenny and Casanova win dramatic team event in Winterberg season-opener

Dec 10, 2022·Alpine Snowboard

Ladina Jenny and Gian Casanova take World Cup win in Winterberg for Switzerland © Miha Matavz/FIS

The first event of the 2022/23 FIS Snowboard Alpine World Cup season started with a bang on Saturday with drama all the way in the parallel slalom mixed team discipline in Winterberg (GER).

Ladina Jenny and Gian Casanova of Switzerland 2 won the event, with both claiming first ever World Cup wins. Andreas Prommegger and Daniela Ulbing of Austria 1 were relegated to second after initially being given the win, a review of the footage adjudged Prommegger to have straddled a gate. Meanwhile, Poland bagged a first ever World Cup parallel team podium courtesy of Oskar Kwiatkowski and Alexandra Krol.

As can be the way in snowboard alpine, the Swiss twosome rode their luck throughout. Up against USA 1 in the 1/8 finals, Iris Pflum fell at the penultimate gate having taken over with a good lead from Cody Winters, allowing Casanova and Jenny to progress.

In the quarter-final, Casanova claimed a healthy 0.78s lead over Japan’s Daichi Shimizu and despite flying down the slope to chase down Jenny's lead, Shimizu's team-mate Tsubaki Miki could not quite make up the defecit, falling short by just 0.03s.

In the semi-final, Jenny made a mistake, which looked to have cost Switzerland a place in the final, but fought back to catch Krol to take the win by just 0.02s. Then came the drama of the big final.

“I’m just really excited about today,” Casanova told FIS post race. “I would never have imagined to end up on the podium, even with the win, together with Ladina. It’s incredible and thank you so much to her.”

“It’s incredible,” agreed Jenny. “Gian had so good riding and was fun to ride with him and we are really happy that we win today. We didn’t expect that and we are now focusing on the qualification for the race tomorrow.” The 29-year-old had claimed 12 podiums but never the top step until now. This was a first top-three finish for Casanova, 22.

In the small final, Kwiatkowski and Krol beat their second Austria big hitters – Claudia Riegler and Arvid Auner – having already knocked out Lucia Dalmasso and the great Roland Fischnaller in the 1/8 round. Auner had handed over a healthy lead but Riegler fell late on to leave the pair off the podium.

It was a day to forget for the hosts, with none of the four German pairings making it past the quarter finals. Favourites, Ramona Theresia Hofmeister and Stefan Baumeister were knocked out in their first race by Shimizu and Miki.

Baumeister, a two-time world medallist and five-time World Cup winner, gave his compatriot, herself an Olympic medallist and last season’s overall winner, a healthy lead heading into the second run, but Hofmeister perhaps felt too comfortable. Miki fought her way back to stun the Germans, progressing to the next round by just 0.01s.

After the morning of drama in the team event, attention turned to qualification for the men’s and women’s parallel slalom events, taking place Saturday afternoon with the finals scheduled for Sunday at 10am (CET).

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