Beijing 2022 OWG preview: Parallel Giant Slalom

Parallel giant slalom is second on the docket for snowboarding medal event at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games and with four days of trainings already in the books everything is locked and loaded for the big show on Tuesday with women’s and men’s qualifications scheduled to go down at 10:40 local time and finals following right after in the afternoon at 14:30.

PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games moguls results

Women:

Gold – Ester Ledecka (CZE), Silver – Selina Joerg (GER), Bronze – Ramona Theresia Hofmeister (GER)

Men:

Gold – Nevin Galmarini (SUI), Silver – Sangho Lee (KOR), Bronze – Zan Kosir (SLO)

Can Ledecka make it back-to-back at the Games?

On the women’s side it’s Ester Ledecka (CZE), who leads the charge coming into the Beijing 2022 as one of the greatest snow-sports athlete in the history will be certainly looking to defend her Olympic title from PyeongChang. And while Ledecka have spent most of her 2021/22 season racing at the alpine World Cup, she’s definitely top favourite for the win at every race she enters. 

With only four starts on snowboard tour in last two season, she still managed to win three of those races and there’s no doubt she’s hoping to add one more Olympic title on Tuesday to what is already an extraordinary record of achievements.

Ledecka is not only the first athlete to compete in snowboard and alpine skiing at any Olympic Winter Games, she is also the only one at Beijing 2022.

After winning gold in the women’s super-G in Alpine skiing at PyeongChang 2018, Ledecka became the third athlete, and first woman, to win gold in two different disciplines at a single OWG, and now can become the first woman to defend the parallel giant slalom Olympic title.

But to do so she will first have to go against a pretty stacked field of riders in the likes of Ramona Theresia Hofmeister (GER), Sofia Nadyrshina (RUS), Daniela Ulbling (AUT) or Ladina Jenny (SUI).

Nadyrshina is coming into Tuesday’s parallel giant slalom competitions as the current PGS World Cup leader, hoping to become the youngest parallel giant slalom Olympic gold medallist and the first gold medallist of the ROC in this event.

Hofmeister might not be experiencing the season of her career, but she’s still one of the fastest women in snowboarding and with as many as 27 World Cup podiums and 13 wins, she will be doing everything she can to step up from her bronze medal performance in PyeongChang, and go for gold this time.

Daniela Ulbling (AUT) on the other hand, is definitely experiencing the best seasons in her career with two wins in 2021/22, while her teammate Julia Dujmovits, who came back to competing in 2021, is also in top-form with impressive results just ahead of the Games. She could add a second snowboarding gold medal to the one she took home in 2014 parallel slalom. With those two athletes in squad Austria has pretty high chances to stay up in the game and aim at what could be Austria’s first Olympic gold in PGS.

Then, there is Ladina Jenny, who leads strong Swiss team with Patrizia Kummer or Julie Zogg also expected to play a huge role on Tuesday.

Finally let’s not forget about Nadya Ochner (ITA), Tsubaki Miki (JPN), Aleksandra Król (POL), Natalia Soboleva (ROC), or the German duo of Carolin Langenhorst and Melanie Hochreiter (GER), all motivated to make some noise in China.