Fast and furious Team Parallel ends in gold for USA and agony for Norway

All the very best elements of the Team Parallel were on show in Courchevel Meribel with the USA snatching World Championship gold from defending champions Norway in a hugely dramatic final.

First up Norway’s super-sub Kristin Lysdahl had to step in for her very first race of the day in the final, after teammate Maria Therese Tviberg injured herself in the semi-final. Facing the in-form Nina O’Brien, Lysdahl shrugged off the pressure and threatened a major upset before falling away in the final gates. With time a deciding factor in the event of any tie, the Norwegian’s loss by just 0.13 seconds kept her team right in it.

The USA’s Parallel specialist River Radamus – who led his team to fourth at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games – then faced Alexander Steen Olsen in a thrilling race between two of the World Cup tour’s most exciting young guns. The 21-year-old Steen Olsen just pipped Radamus by four-hundredths of a second.

The tension was then ratcheted up to breaking point by Paula Moltzan and Thea Louise Stjernesund, who were inseparable at the bottom of the Roc de Fer track, both finishing in 22.74 seconds.

That left a simple equation for final racers Timon Haugan (NOR) and Tommy Ford (USA): whoever won the 64th and final race of the day would take gold for their country.

It all proved too much for 26-year-old Haugan who went too early, got his ski tips caught in the start gate and nearly somersaulted into the snow. Amid gasps from the packed, sun-drenched stands, Ford kept his nerve and calmly skied down for the USA’s first ever major championship team gold.

“It was really special,” a beaming Radamus said. “I love these team events because it’s something we don’t get to do all the time; compete as a team.

“It can seem like ski racing is an individual sport but really these people, these guys and girls I am on a team with, they’re my family. We are competing and training together all year long.

“So, to get to do it with Tommy and with Nina, Paula, Katie (Hensien) and Luke (Winters) is really special to me. It brings out a different level in me whenever I get to compete like that.”

The man from Colorado had indeed been on a “different level”. Skiing with the confidence gained from a fourth-place finish in the Alpine combined, Radamus’ lightning-fast first run pulled the USA through a difficult opening tie versus Poland before he drove them past European big guns Italy in the quarter-final and Canada in the semi-final.

Canada however, continued their dreamy 2023 World Championships, with a stunning third medal denying Austria in the bronze medal match-up. Led by dynamic duo Erik Read and Valerie Grenier, the reigning Olympic champions were not the only European heavyweights knocked out by the North Americans.

First of all, buoyed no doubt by James Crawford’s brilliant men’s super-G gold and Cameron Alexander’s shock downhill bronze, the Canadians took out the heavily fancied Swiss in the quarter-finals. Not even the presence of three-time world champion Wendy Holdener could help the event multi-medallists.

Then in the small final Grenier, who won Canada’s first World Cup giant slalom crown for 49 years earlier this season, flew out of the gates to give Canada a lead they just held on to with Read holding off Austrian Stefan Brennsteiner in the decider.

But it was down to Radamus to sum up just what this event means to many of the skiers.

“I haven’t had the success I’ve wanted to on the World Cup level but to have it in my first event as a team makes it even more special to me,” the former world junior champion said.

“I love this team, all these people have been pushing so hard for a long time.”