Starting on the women’s side it’s Julie Zogg (SUI) and Daniela Ulbing (AUT) who lead the charge in the PSL ranking in ex aequo first place with 145 points. The reining PSL World Cup champion Zogg won the season’s opening competition in Bannoye (RUS), while Ulbing took the top spot in Bad Gastein (AUT).
Zogg won the competition here in Piancavallo and she will be certainly looking to repeat her 2020 triumph. Ulbling, on the other hand, is coming straight off her silver medal performance at Beijing 2022 OWG and she will be hoping to extend her podium streak this weekend.
Going further down the list also watch out for Ramona Theresia Hofmeister (GER), who is sitting behind Zogg and Ulbling in third place, as well as Tsubaki Miki (JPN), Julia Dujmovits (AUT), Caroline Langenhorst (AUT) and Sabine Schoeffmann (AUT).
In the men’s PSL competitions so far it was all about Austrian Snowboard Team, which has as many as 6 riders in top-10 with Arvid Auner and Andreas Prommegger leading the 1-2 punch with respective 160 and 140 points. And if those two fail to deliver in Piancavallo, Olympic Champion Benjamin Karl as well as Fabian Obmann, Alexander Payer and Lukas Mathies will be ready to step it up for the Austrians on Saturday.
Then let’s not forget about third in PSL ranking Sangho Lee (KOR), as well as Radoslav Yankov (BUL), Arnaud Gaudet (CAN) and Cody Winters (USA), all showing some promising riding in parallel slalom this season.
Last, but not least the Italian team will be looking to finally get a win in 2021/22 and with the likes of Roland Fischnaller, Edwin Coratti or Aaron March on hand, we’re sure to see some explosive riding from the home squad on the tough slope in Piancavallo.
Meanwhile, in parallel team action, the lone parallel slalom team competition we’ve seen so far in 2021/22 saw Arvid Auner and Julia Dujmovits standing on top of the podium, as they were able to best Dmitry Karlagachev and Natalia Soboleva of the Russian team, and the German tandem of Hofmeister and Elias Huber. Italy’s Nadia Ochner and Daniele Bagozza did not race in Bad Gastein but they finished in a runner-up position here in Piancavallo two years ago and the duo should represent yet another hope for an Italian podium this weekend.
The individual parallel slalom competition is set to get underway with qualification runs at 10:00 CET on Saturday, with finals following at 14:00. Sunday’s team event, meanwhile, will begin with pre-finals at 13:00, followed immediately by finals at 14:00.
WATCH LIVE
Saturday
TV Broadcast: ORF Sport + (Austria), BNT3 (Bulgaria), CCTV LIVE (China), TV 3 Sport Open (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), TV SLO 2 (Slovenia)
Streaming: Eurosport player (Asia + Europe), CT iBroadcasting (Czech Republic), Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), L’Equipe Web (France), Arena 4+ (Hungary), JOJ Sport (Slovakia), Peacock & skiandsnowboard.live (USA), FIS Snowboard Youtube
Sunday
TV Broadcast: ORF Sport + (Austria), BNT3 (Bulgaria), CCTV LIVE (China), TV 3 Sport Open (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), TV SLO 2 (Slovenia)
Streaming: Eurosport player (Asia + Europe), CT iBroadcasting (Czech Republic), Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), L’Equipe Web (France), Arena 4+ (Hungary), JOJ Sport (Slovakia), Peacock & skiandsnowboard.live (USA), FIS Snowboard Youtube
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