Schoeffmann and Payer on top in Simonhoehe’s team event
Jan 15, 2022·Alpine Snowboard
The second of back-to-back competitions scheduled for this weekend in Simonhoehe (AUT) went down in a big way on Saturday, as Austria’s Sabine Schoeffmann and her partner Alexander Payer stormed to huge victory at home resort in Corinthia region, wrapping up the first portion of 2021/22 season on a high.
Straight from Friday’s individual PGS competition, the world’s best athletes were back in racing mode again on Saturday for what was prime display of top-level snowboarding in a thrilling team format competition.
And after another intensive day of racing, it was Sabine Schoeffmann and Alexander Payer, who worked day way through to take an emotional win at inaugural edition of the snowboard alpine World Cup event at home slope in Simonehoehe.
On Saturday Schoeffmann and Payer raced against the likes of Korea’s Sao Hee Gang and Sangkyum Kim, Slovenia’s Gloria Kotnik and Tim Mastnak, Russia’s Polina Smolentsova and Andrei Sobolev, and finally Germany’s Melanie Hochreiter and Stefan Baumeister.
The big final delivered exactly what everyone was hoping for - pure action from start to finish. Dropping in first both Baumeister and Payer came with strong efforts going head-to-head before Baumeister’s final push that gave the German pair a .25 sec advantage after first half of the heat.
That left all in hands of Hochreiter and Schoeffmann, dropping in for the final match-up ahead of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in China in just a couple of weeks from now. And while Hochreiter was hoping to carry momentum from her previous day’s third place finish, it was Schoeffmann who came with a flawless run to cross the line in first place and cap off an impressive week for the Austrian Snowboard Team with their fourth victory since Tuesday.
With Schoeffmann and Payer on top, Hochreiter and Baumeister had to settle for second place on the day, while Korea’s Korea’s Haerim Joeng and Sangho Lee rounded out the podium in third place after edging out the Russian duo of Polina Smolentsova and Andrei Sobolev.
In the overall parallel mixed team standings Wednesday’s winners from Bad Gastein Julia Dujmovits and Arvid Auner continue to lead the way with 145 points, but now only 5 points ahead of Schoeffmann and Payer. Hochreiter and Baumesiter now jumped into third spot with 112 points.
The FIS Snowboard Alpine World Cup is now heading into Olympic break, with four more stops in 2021/22 coming after the pinnacle event of the season, in February and March.
QUICK LINKS:
Simonhöhe World Cup data page (startlists, live timing, results)
Results: TEAM
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