What a second parallel event. While Austria’s dominator Benjamin Karl from now on claims the nickname Golden Boy, Hilde-Katrine Engeli raced to an unexpected Parallel Slalom World Championship title in La Molina, Spain, causing the biggest sensation of the 9th FIS Snowboard WCS.
The 22 years-old one-woman-show from Norway surprised everybody including herself grabbing Gold in the parallel slalom. Engeli, an experienced World Cup starter with 48 entries so far but only four top-10 results, had qualified as eleventh best rider seeming to be an easy victim in the knock out rounds.
But the female Viking was ready for domination, throwing in a never give up mentality: in her eighth finals, she knocked out 2010 Olympic runner-up Ekaterina Ilyukhina (RUS) by 13 hundredths. In the quarters, she edged off defending psl world champion Fraenzi Maegert-Kohli (SUI) with a tiny lead of 20 hundredths.
The semi against later on Bronze medalist Claudia Riegler was an easy task, just like the final against Olympic champion Nicolien Sauerbreij (NED).
According to this, Engeli said all smiles: “I wasn’t expecting anything, especially not to get on the podium. This triumph fills me with satisfaction because I didn’t do well in the last World Cup races.”
Another shining star of the La Molina slopes was Benjamin Karl who crowned himself the most successful rider securing his second Gold. However, it was a tougher fight than three days before when he dominated the field impressively.
“It was a hard race in which I had to give everything in every single heat. Especially my duels with my team mates (Manuel Veith in the quarters, Andreas Prommegger in the semis) were super close. In the finals, I had to risk everything in run two after having gained a gap in the first run. But it’s an incredible feeling to be a double world champion. I’m still left in disbelief.”
The men’s podium was rounded out by Swiss Simon Schoch as second and Rok Marguc (SLO) as third.
Final results women: http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2011/SB/7235/7235RLR0.pdf
Women’s bracket: http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2011/SB/7235/7235RLRF.pdf
Final results men: http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2011/SB/7236/7236RLR0.pdf
Men’s bracket: http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2011/SB/7236/7236RLRF.pdf
