Smith, Mueller lead U.S. riders in opening World Cup parallel slalom

LANDGRAAF, Netherlands — U.S. Snowboarding loaded five riders into the final of the season-opening World Cup on Friday as Adam Smith and Erica Mueller led the Americans, finishing ninth and 12th respectively at the indoor parallel slalom.
    Also making the top 16 was 2002 Olympic bronze medalist Chris Klug, Justin Reiter and Zac Kay, who landed his first World Cup final. Austrian Siegfried Grabner won the event for the second time in two years while Olympic silver medalist Amelie Kober of Germany celebrated her first World Cup win.
    "Both Smith and Klug were riding well," said alpine snowboarding head coach Steve Persons, "then they both had similar problems at the bottom and made smalls mistakes. On a course as flat as this, there isn't much room for mistakes, even small ones. But, it's awesome to have five riders in the final of the first World Cup, especially three young riders like Zac, Justin and Erica. That's definitely encouraging."
    Smith, who has hit the podium twice before at SnowWorld, including a win in 2004, ripped into the final, qualifying fourth, but went a little straight through the final gates, costing him too much time on the already short course.
    "Smith will be fired up after this one," added Persons. "He really likes it here, as does Erica. This was only her second World Cup final, the first was here as well, just last year. She had a great first run and was actually ahead after one run, but the Austrian caught her in the second by 0.1 seconds. She just couldn't find her rhythm — it will be interesting to see how she does this season with a few more World Cup starts. She's got the confidence, that's for sure."
    Reiter, the reigning U.S. parallel giant slalom and slalom champion, edged third-place finisher Marc Iselin of Switzerland by 0.2 seconds in the first run but couldn't keep the momentum into the second run, finishing 12th on the day. But it was Kay, who had the toughest seed, lining up against double Olympic gold medalist Simon Schoch of Switzerland in the first round of the finals.
    "I didn't get a chance to talk to him about it yet, but I wondered how his nerves were," Persons said. "He handled himself well and stayed pretty composed. This was a great way for Zac to start the season. Actually, it was a great way for this team to open the year. Now it's time to take what we learned here and get ready for next weekend."
    The alpine riders will compete in the season's first PGS on Oct. 21-22 in Sölden, Austria.

— USSA