(Montreal) The first parallel giant slalom of the season came down to a downhill for snowboarders Arnaud Gaudet and Jules Lefebvre on Thursday in Italy.
Gaudet finished the race at 36e rank in Carezza, a result identical to that obtained in the same place last year. His time of 38.32 s, on the 19e recorded in the blue corridor, was insufficient to move on to the second qualifying round, reserved for the 32 best riders of the day.
“I had a conservative descent, I would say. Not bad, but not very fast either. I was still surprised to see how far I was behind the others,” mentioned the Quebecer, who is aiming for a top-16 finish in this event during the season.
“There is work to be done, but I have confidence that it is possible”, he underlined.
Last week, Arnaud Gaudet finished 28e parallel slalom raced in Winterberg, Germany, in addition to placing 11e in the team event with Megan Farrell.
For his part, Jules Lefebvre had a similar journey to that of Gaudet on Thursday. He finished 42e with a time of 39.12 s in the red course and could not complete a second pass.
It was the first event of the campaign in the World Cup for the one who had ranked 20e parallel giant slalom at the Beijing Olympics.
Austrian Andreas Prommegger won gold in the final against Swiss Dario Caviezel. The Italian Roland Fischnaller won the small final against his compatriot Maruzio Bormolini.
The snowboarders will resume action on Saturday, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where they will participate in another giant slalom in parallel.