ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) -Benjamin Karl from Austria barrelled down the course to win gold in the men’s snowboard parallel giant slalom at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday.
Karl beat Tim Mastnak from Slovenia in the final race by 0.82 seconds, while Vic Wild from the Russian Olympic Committee took bronze.
None of the medalists from the 2018 Games made it onto the podium in Tuesday’s final, with South Korea’s favourite Lee Sang-ho and Nevin Galmarini from Switzerland washing out earlier in the day’s final races.
Zan Kosir from Slovenia, who won bronze in PGS in both Pyeongchang and Sochi, said he spent a total of 11 days in quarantine after testing positive in Beijing.
The isolation period affected his mental state and prevented him from training adequately, Kosir told reporters after he failed to finish his 1/8 final race.
The competition took place at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, where the athletes were blessed all day with clear skies and relatively warm temperatures of -9 degrees Celsius (15°F).
In PGS, two boarders compete against one another on parallel courses, with the athletes holding the highest seeding from qualification choosing their preferred course; red or blue.
Competed on an elimination basis, athletes make one run on two separate courses.
(Reporting by Mari Saito and Winni Zhou; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jacqueline Wong)
