Parallel Giant Slalom, Women

The last two World Cup leaders were German Amelie Kober (2009) and the Netherlands’ Nicolien Sauerbreij (2008), while the 2009 World Champion was Austrian Marion Kreiner. Rounding out the four favorites was Kreiner’s teammate, Doris Günther, runner-up at the 2009 World Championships and 2008-09 World Cup. Of note, the World Cup standings are for parallel snowboarding, which includes parallel GS and parallel slalom, which is not an Olympic event. Kreiner led the qualifying followed by Sauerbreij, the event being held in torrential rain and poor visibility. When the elimination phase of the event started, Kreiner advanced to the semi-final round with relative ease when her opponents made errors in their races. Sauerbreij also made the semi-finals, again helped by opponents’ faults. The other semi-finalists were Russian Yekaterina Ilyukhina, who had taken out Kober in the quarter-finals, and German Selina Jörg, who had just defeated Austrian Ina Meschik by the narrow margin of 0.08 seconds in the quarter-finals, after taking out Günther in the first round.

In the semi-finals, Ilyukhina crashed out in the first run, but a mistake by Kreiner in the second run saw the Russian advance to the final. Georg had led Sauerbreij narrowly after their first run, but crashed out near the end of the second run when they were neck and neck. Kreiner comfortably won the contest for the bronze medal following mistakes by her opponent. The final was a thriller, with Ilyukhina leading Sauerbreij by 0.02 seconds after the first run. However, in a close contest, it was Sauerbreij who took the title by the narrow margin of 0.23 seconds. This was the first medal of any kind that the Netherlands had won in a “snow” event, all their previous medals being in “ice” sports.