French and Italian teams rock Team SBX sprint in Moscow
Aug 31, 2018·Snowboard Cross
French duo Nelly Moenne Loccoz and Chloe Trespeuch as well as Italy's Emanuel Perathoner and Omar Visintin have claimed victory in this season's third Team SBX race of the FIS Snowboard World Cup tour which was staged in Moscow, Russia today.
On the 350 metres long sprint track in Lata Park, located west of downtown Moscow, the leading female duo of the World Cup standings kept on dominating the team competition by making it three out of three stops bringing down another wire-to-wire victory.
Thanks to the amazing start skills of Moenne Loccoz who quickly gained a lead on her rivals in the final women's heat, Trespeuch didn't take the bread out of her mouth anymore crossing the finish line first ahead of CAN 3 with Zoe Bergermann and Tess Critchlow with Lara Casanova and Simona Meiler from Switzerland rounding out the podium in third.
“It was a very good race,” said Trespeuch. “We were a bit stressed this morning. But we managed to bring home another win.”
While the women's final was an easy one for FRA 1, the men's final had to be decided on the line with Emanuel Perathoner and Omar Visintin coming out successful of a photo finish with AUT 4.
After the first four racers had stormed down the course neck to neck, Alessandro Haemmerle (AUT) and Visintin took over centre stage with yesterday's winner from Austria taking over the lead quickly.
But Visintin never gave up and tried to draft as much as he could. And when both riders came down to the finish line, it was Haemmerle celebrating too early and Visintin pushing his board forward to take home the win for ITA 1 and the top seat in the World Cup rankings with only one more race to come.
“I was in second and never thought to be able to pass him. When there were still a few metres to go I saw him celebrating and kept on pushing. We were lucky to come out victorious,” summed up Visintin his parforce run with which he caught Haemmerle napping.
But the 24-year-old was man enough to shoulder the blame with a smile:
“I wasn't even part of a photo finish because Omar came in like a ninja. He came from my blind spot. I didn't see him nor did I hear him. He was just right behind my back. I guess it was a bad habit of mine celebrating too early. It just felt good for the moment, but noticing to end up second was like a punch in the face.”
Senna Leith and Jake Vedder of USA 6 finished in third bumping off their fellow countrymen Alex Deibold and Jonathan Cheever of USA 5 off the podium.
The FIS SBX World Cup tour will continue next weekend in Switzerland, where Veysonnaz is set to host the season's finals with an individual and a team event race from 16 to 18 March, 2018.
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