Selina Jörg fell into the snow, stunned, and, as the two-time world champion, kept shaking her head. The German snowboarder raced to World Cup gold in the parallel giant slalom at the season highlight in Rogla in Slovenia, successfully defending her 2019 title. “I’m speechless,” said the 33-year-old on Monday after the final victory over the Russian Sofia Nadirschina. “That’s incredible. I’m so happy and can’t believe what happened here. ”In bright sunshine, the experienced athlete had caught up a clear gap in the final. Bronze went to the Austrian Julia Dujmovits.
The German sporting director Andreas Scheid had given “two to three medals” as the target for the title fights in Slovenia. And the yield would have been possible in the first women’s event. But then top favorite and qualification winner Ramona Hofmeister (Bischofswiesen) just dropped out in the quarterfinals against Dujmovits and Cheyenne Loch (Schliersee) as the second fastest of the qualification did not progress against Claudia Riegler (Austria) by 0.02 seconds.
Ester Ledecka has to pass
The biggest rival of the German female boarders had already taken herself out of the race that morning: Olympic champion Ester Ledecka decided not to start because she was battered. You could not even warm up, said the 25-year-old. “That decided that I had no business at the start,” explained the two-time world champion on social networks. She will now work on being able to take part in the World Cup final of the alpine ski aces in Lenzerheide in two weeks, she said.
Despite her double workload on skis and snowboards, Ledecka is one of the best athletes in the world: at her only start in the Snowboard World Cup this winter, she promptly won. She also prevailed over Jörg and Hofmeister at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Unlike the German women, the men experienced a bitter disappointment on the first of two days of racing in Rogla. Stefan Baumeister (Aising-Pang), who won two World Cup bronze medals in 2019, was eliminated in qualifying, as was Elias Huber (Schellenberg), Ole Mikkel Prantl (Königssee) and Yannik Angenend (Lengdorf). The gold medal went to Dimitri Loginow from the Russian team. On Tuesday the parallel slalom will take place in Rogla.
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