Sabine Payer secured her third World Cup victory of the season in parallel alpine snowboarding at Krynica-Zdroj, Poland, on Sunday, defeating Italy’s Lucia Dalmasso by a mere 0.03 seconds. The win marks the Austrian athlete’s 13th individual World Cup triumph, according to reports from the Austrian Press Agency (APA).
The victory comes after Payer finished seventh in Saturday’s parallel giant slalom (PGS) event at the same location. She navigated a challenging course, eliminating Switzerland’s Julie Zogg in the quarter-finals and Germany’s Ramona Hofmeister in the semi-finals before facing Dalmasso in the final. “It was a big fight. I had small mistakes, she also had some,” Payer stated, as reported by laola1.at. She attributed her success to choosing the faster, “blue” course during qualification, noting it was slightly easier at the bottom.
Despite Payer’s strong performance, she remains 141 points behind Japan’s Tsubaki Miki, the current leader in the PGS World Cup standings. Payer lost to Miki in the quarter-finals on Saturday.
Austria’s Olympic champion Benjamin Karl finished fourth in Sunday’s race, following an eighth-final exit on Saturday. Karl, potentially competing in his last World Cup season, trails Italy’s Maurizio Bormolini by 80 points in the overall standings. He lost to Bormolini in both the eighth and quarter-finals in Krynica, though he had previously defeated the Italian at the Olympics in Italy. Karl competed in the small final but was bested by Switzerland’s Gino Caviezel.
The Austrian team experienced a mixed day overall. Andreas Prommegger, Alexander Payer, and Dominik Burgstaller were all eliminated in the eighth-finals. Arvid Auner and Fabian Obmann failed to qualify for the knockout stages. Among the women, only Martina Ankele joined Payer in the knockout rounds, but she was defeated by Zogg in the first round. Veteran Claudia Riegler missed the 16-rider field, finishing 20th in qualification.
