Parallel Giant Slalom, Women

This was the Olympic début for parallel giant slalom, as in 1998, a giant slalom run as a two-run time trial had been conducted. In this event, 30 boarders started with 16 advancing to the single-elimination match racing rounds. The finals matched the two favored French teammates, the 1998 giant slalom gold medalist, Karine Ruby, and Isabelle Blanc, who was on track to win the silver medal in Nagano, when she missed the final gate in the second run. Ruby was a five-time World Champion, while Blanc had been parallel World Champion in 1999 and World Cup champion in 2000. In the final, Blanc dominated the first run, winning by 1.89 seconds. On the second run, Ruby came back to win by 0.15 seconds but could not make up the margin, and Blanc had the gold medal. Ruby would compete again at the 2006 Winter Olympics, switching to boardercross. She then began training to become a mountain guide and was killed in late May 2009 when she fell into a crevasse on Mont Blanc. The biggest surprise of the competition was Poland’s Jagna Marczułajtis, who had never placed better than 12th in a World Cup race. Matched against Austrian Maria Kirchgasser in the first round, she advanced to the semi-finals when Kirchgasser fell on the second run. After losing to Blanc in the semis, Marczułajtis lost the bronze-medal match against Italy’s Lidia Trettel.