Joerg and Coratti capture PGS World Cup career-first victories

Rogla (SLO) - The final parallel giant slalom competition before the Utah 2019 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle, and Freeski World Championships take place in early February went down on Saturday in snowy Rogla (SLO), where fans at one of the liveliest venues on the alpine World Cup tour witnessed Selina Joerg (GER) and Edwin Coratti (ITA) break out from slow starts to the season to capture victories.

Joerg entered competition at Rogla sitting in 15th on the World Cup standings, with her best result thus far in 2018/19 being a sixth-place finish at the Bad Gastein (AUT) parallel slalom World Cup almost two weeks ago.

Joerg, however, has a strong history at Rogla, with six-straight top ten finishes at the venue leading up to Saturday’s competition, including a third-place result scored back in 2015, and in this season’s iteration she was able to make good on the promises of the past by besting Russia’s Natalia Soboleva in the big final.

The win was Joerg’s first career PGS World Cup victory, and comes less than a year after she earned her first PSL victory in 11 years at last season on home soil in Winterberg (GER).

“The last races didn´t go the way I wanted them. Today everything was perfect,” said Joerg. “I won the qualification and had a very good feeling for the track. Yesterday my boyfriend told me, to bring one of the trophies back home. I´m happy, I can do that now.”

Soboleva, too, made a little bit of personal history on Saturday, scoring her first ever PGS World Cup podium, adding the result to the lone other podium on her resume - a PSL third-place finish from last season in Cortina.

Rounding out the podium in third was Joerg’s teammate Cheyenne Loch (GER), who kept the theme of personal milestones going by earning what was also her first career PGS World Cup podium, and her first podium in over three years.

With so many new faces on the podium for this season, things at the top of the ladies’ World Cup leaderboard changed little, as Ester Ledecka was able to maintain her lead on the PGS and parallel overall rankings despite not competing in either of the last two FIS alpine snowboard World Cup competitions while she instead races in the Alpine ski World Cup. However, second-overall Nadya Ochner (ITA) did gain some ground on Ledecka on Saturday with a fourth-place finish.

Coratti shrugs off tough start to season to earn win

The men’s race at Rogla saw an all-Italian big final showdown between teammates Edwin Coratti and Daniele Bagozza, two athletes who had struggled mightily through the early part of the season without a top-10 finish to show between them.

On Saturday that all changed, however, as Coratti took advantage of the fast final stretch in the blue course to cruise to his second career World Cup victory while returning to the form that saw him finish second overall in the PGS ranking last season.

“It is really great. I´ve had two wait for two years to repeat a first place,” Coratti said. “And it also is my first victory in a PGS. It was really tough, the start of the season was very difficult for me. Being on the podium and on the first place is incredible.”

For 23-year-old youngster Bagozza the second-place result would go in the books as the first World Cup podium of his career, as the classic course in Rogla continued to offer up personal milestones through the day’s competition.

And, finally, in what was the highlight of the day for the boisterous crowd, veteran Slovenian rider Roc Marguc was able to shake off the disappointment of a semi-final defeat to Bagozza to win the small final and claim third spot on the podium - his first top-3 World Cup result on home soil.

As with the ladies, the abundance of athletes earning their first podium results of 2018/19 meant no major changes at the very top of the men’s World Cup leaderboard, with Benjamin Karl (AUT) maintaining his lead over the PGS and parallel overall fields despite finishing 19th on Saturday. His lead was slimmed, however, by Nevin Galmarini (SUI), who finished in fourth-place on the day, and continued a strong start to the season that has seen him finish no lower than sixth so far in 2018/19.

From Rogla, the FIS alpine snowboard World Cup moves on to Moscow (RUS), for a unique event of the season, as the riders will find themselves dropping in on a giant scaffolding race course set up for PSL competition next weekend. Individual qualifications and finals in Moscow will go down on January 26th, followed up by team PSL on the 27th.

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