Scuol ready to host first SB Alpine event of 2022

Jan 07, 2022·Snowboard Alpine

The FIS Snowboard Alpine World Cup is set to return to action after the holiday break with parallel giant slalom competition scheduled to go down on Saturday, January 8 in Scuol (SUI).

After a highly entertaining month of December that saw three PGS races as well as one PSL competition to go down at three different venues in Bannoye (RUS), Carezza (ITA) and Cortina d’Ampezzo (ITA), the first parallel event of 2022 will be now taking to the Scoul’s slopes located in the beautiful region of Engadin.

Known as the “Home of Hardbooters” and the home resort of reigning PyeongChang 2018 Olympic gold medallist and 2017/18 parallel overall crystal globe winner Nevin Galmarini, Scuol’s first turn as World Cup host came in the form of highly entertaining competitions already five season ago, and again this year Scuol is ready to welcome over 100 athletes to compete in the fourth PGS race of the 2020/21 season. And once again we’re confident that the best women and men of snowboard carving will put up an extraordinary show on the Ftaner slope in the Motta Naluns ski area.

Entering Saturday’s competition on top of the corresponding women’s and men’s parallel giant slalom standings will be Sofiya Nadyrshina (RUS) and Sangho Lee (KOR) with respective 191 and 220 points after three PGS races so far in the 2021/22 campaign.

With a victory in Bannoye as well as a second place in Cortina d’Ampezzo Nadyrshina is coming into Saturday’s competition just 10 points ahead of second in the ranking Daniela Ulbling (AUT), but it’s the Russian rider, who has more favourable record on the venue in Scuol. Nadyrshina finished in second place back in 2020 and she won the event here last year, so it’s hard to expect the 18-year-old to aim for anything else than victory on Saturday.

Besides afore-mentioned Nadyrshina and Ulbling, let’s not forget about reining PGS World Cup champion Ramona Theresia Hofmeister (GER), who also has an impressive history of results in Scuol with a victory in 2020 and a second place finish last season. In 2021/22 Homeister is still missing that spot on top of the podium, so coming after a holiday break we expect the German rider to do her best to push for her first win of the season.

Going further down the starting list also expect strong showings from the likes of Austria’s Julia Dujmovits and Sabine Schoeffmann, Germany’s Carolin Langenhorst and Melanie Hochreiter, Italy’s Nadya Ochner as well as the Swiss duo Julie Zogg and Ladina Jenny, who will be hoping to make some noise in front of their home crowd.

After a couple of rather average seasons following his silver medal at the home Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang (KOR), Sangho Lee is back to his winning ways just in time for another OWG. So far he’s been a dominant force on the men’s tour with one victory, two second places and one more top-6 finish in four races staged this season, and we can assure you that he’s going to be among top dogs also this weekend.

Also Stefan Baumeister (GER) is back to his top form, sitting second in the PGS ranking with 194 points and two top-3 finishes so far in 2021/22.

Then, there is the Italian squad with four athletes in the PGS top-10, including Mirko Felicetti, Daniele Bagozza, Edwin Coratti and Roland Fischnaller.

Benjamin Karl (AUT) and Tim Mastnak (SLO) also have some decent results so far in the campaign and should be in the mix on Saturday.

Also let’s not forget about the Russian Snowboard Team, which has an impressive record in Scuol, led by Dmitry Loginov, last year’s winner Igor Sluev and Andrey Sobolev, who won the races back in 2019 and 2020.

The Polish team with Michał Nowaczyk and Oskar Kwiatkowski in squad also snagged two top-3 spots in recent years.

Last, but not least, the Swiss fans will be putting plenty of hopes in the likes of the local hero Nevin Galmarini and Dario Caviezel, who is coming straight off of his very first World Cup victory, and now extra-motivated while on home soil will be obviously trying to break into top-3.

The competition is Scuol is set to get underway with the qualification rounds beginning at 9:30 CET, and finals following up immediately after that at 14:00.

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