First Competitions in Maoershan

The weather seemed it wanted to celebrate the start of the competition in this very beautiful venue of Maoershang: a beautiful sun and a thermometer that has climbed to -12°C have presided the qualifying rounds of the men and women snowboard cross events. Instead of the classical 4 men/women races that will take place for the next rounds, the qualifications consist in a double time event (only the best time of the two legs is taken into account in the qualification).

No big surprise on this very demanding and technical slope: the most experienced competitor has clocked the best time. Mateusz Ligocki (POL), 6th in the 2008 Snowboard Cross World Cup final classification, has been a half second faster than Czech boarder David Bakes. The Swiss Clemens Bolli (3rd), the Austrian Andreas Lausegger (4th) and the Italian Luca Matteotti (5th ) surfed also under the minute. Matteotti is in very good shape: the Italian champion has won 2 Europa Cups and finished twice second in this same Cup during the month of January. Man to man’s race is furthermore very different than the time event: if the qualifications have given already a certain indication of the ranking of the best athletes, they will not necessarily reflect the final podium.

In the women’s race, the best time went to the Czech Champion Klara Koukalova but she will have to carefully watch the young French girl Claire Chapotot who has won three Europa Cup events in January. The Italian champion Raffaella Brutto is not far away either.

Tomorrow, the first medals are going to be awarded in Maoershang with Snowboard Cross men and women and the Biathlon 20km men’s and women’s finals on the program.