Austrian, Swiss riders win PGS openers in Soelden

Austrian, Swiss riders win PGS openers in Soelden{mosimage}Doris Krings won an all-Austrian parallel giant slalom final in front of a home crowd to take the European opener on the FIS Nokia Snowboard World Cup. In the men’s race, Urs Eiselin of Switzerland defeated Austria’s Siegfried Grabner for the win, with Canada’s Jasey Jay Anderson taking third.

Six Austrian riders made it to the final 16 in the women’s races on the Rettenbach Glacier above Soelden, and Krings bested teammate Maria Pichler for the win. Swiss Daniela Meuli was third, followed by Austrians Manuela Riegler and Doris Guenther in fourth and fifth.

Eric Warren was the only U.S. rider to make the men’s final 16, qualifying ninth and finishing 10th, losing in the first heat of the finals to France’s Nicolas Huet. In qualifying, Peter Thorndike was 22nd, Adam Smith 24th, Ryan McDonald 51st. Olympic bronzed medalist Chris Klug had a tough day in qualifying and wound up 61st.

No Americans made it to women’s finals. The top finisher in qualifying was Michelle Gorgone. Stacia Hookom, second at Soelden a year ago, was 22nd, with Lisa Kosglow 29th and Lynn Ott 34th.

The FIS debuted a new start system in Soelden’s PGS, and many riders had problems. All riders got a demo with the new start gate on Friday “and everyone seemed to have it figured out,” said U.S. alpine head coach Nick Smith. “Before yesterday, nobody had ever seen that type of gate before — it opens slower and a lot of riders barged them when trying to nail their timing. If you go early, they make you pay because there is no give if you jump. It was a bad day for sure.”

After placing seven of 10 riders in the finals at the Chilean World Cup opener, the U.S. squad was looking to ride that momentum into Soelden.

“The snow was in great shape and you could see everything,” added Smith. “We had a great three days of training in Hintertux before coming up here and things seemed to be rolling. The team really wanted to take advantage of that momentum and they got too excited.”

The opening weekend for the snowboard World Cup wraps up Sunday with a parallel slalom.

FIS SNOWBOARD WORLD CUP
Soelden, Austria
October 18, 2003

Women’s PGS
1. Doris Krings, Austria
2. Maria Pichler, Austria
3. Daniela Mueli, Switzerland
4. Manuela Riegler, Austria
U.S. riders
19. Michelle Gorgone, Sudbury, MA
22. Stacia Hookom, Edwards, CO
29. Lisa Kosglow, Boulder, CO
34. Lynn Ott, Bend, OR

Men’s PGS
1. Urs Eiselin, Switzerland
2. Sigfried Graber, Austria
3. Jasey Jay Anderson, Canada
4. Phillip Schoch, Switzerland
U.S. riders
10. Eric Warren, Bennington, VT
22. Pete Thorndike, Meredith, NH
24. Adam Smith, Tangent, OR
51. Ryan McDonald, Entiat, WA
61. Chris Klug, Aspen, CO