Caroline Calvé of Canada competes in a Snowboard World Cup 2013 women's Parallel Giant Slalom, in Carezza, northern Italy, Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Felice Calabro'
December 14, 2013 - 9:39 AM
CAREZZA, Italy - Canadian Caroline Calve won gold in parallel slalom on Saturday in an alpine snowboard World Cup event.
Calve, from Gatineau, Que., claimed her third career World Cup win by edging Russia's Ekaterina Tudegesheva in the final, beating her opponent by just 0.06 seconds. Germany's Selina Joerg took third.
"It's good to have a podium result before the Olympics," said Calve. "But it's my second win within the qualification period so I wasn't that nervous before this race. Now, it's even less stress."
Organizers reset the course for the finals due to the slope conditions. The final course was 340 metres in length and featured 25 gates.
"It was the right decision to re-set the course after the qualification," said Calve. "It made the racing so much more even, easier and more fun."
Patrizia Kummer of Switzerland and Tudegesheva are joint top of the parallel standings. Calve is 40 points behind, in third.
The other Canadian women did not get past qualifying. Ariane Lavigne of Lac-Superieur, Que., was 27th, Marianne Leeson of Burlington, Ont., 30th and Calgary's Ekaterina Zavialova was 40th
On the men's side, the final was even closer as France's Sylvain Dufour secured his career's second win by edging out Austria's Alexander Payer by only one hundredth of a second. Lukas Mathies, also from Austria, finished third.
Dufour moved into third in the World Cup parallel standings, behind Zan Kosir of Slovenia and Mathies.
Matthew Morison of Blackstock, Ont., was the only Canadian to get past the preliminaries and was 13th.
Jasey-Jay Anderson of Lac-Superieur was 32nd, Toronto's Michael Lambert was 37th, Matthew Carter of Maryhill, Ont., placed 39th, Steve Barlow of Courtice, Ont., finished 43rd and Sebastien Beaulieu of Sherbrooke, Que., came in 53rd.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2013