Three new World Champions were crowned today in Cortina as Marta Bassino, Katharina Liensberger, and Matthieu Faivre all earned gold medals in today’s Parallel World Championship debut.
Liensberger and Bassino ended in a rare tie for the gold medal, giving Cortina 2021 a bonus gold medalist.
“I am happy today to get the medal for Italy and the organizers, (...) It was not an easy day for sure, but to get Italy’s first medal makes me proud”, Bassino said.
Rounding out the Women’s podium was Tessa Worley who defeated American Paula Moltzan.
On the Men's side, France also took a gold medal as Mathieu Faivre defeated Croatia's Filip Zubcic in the final by 0.48 seconds.
Meanwhile, Loic Meillard defeated Alexander Schmid in the Small Final.
“I am really happy to win my first individual medal, but there is much that needs to be discussed after today", said Faivre.
The discussion that Faivre was referring to was a discrepancy between the red and the blue courses which created many uneven finishes in the second match-up between the athletes, especially with the controversial rule that the maximum lead a skier could take from the first run was 0.50 seconds. Even the run/re-run format couldn’t make-up for the difference, which had many athletes seeing red at the end of the race.
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