More medals have been awarded at the FIS World Junior Champs 2021 in Krasnoyarsk. The jury defined the strongest snowboarders in parallel giant slalom,
where 18 teams from Russia, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Austria, Japan, Italy and Korea contested.
Each team had two athletes. In each race, men started first, followed by the ladies, with the handicap obtained by their partners.
In the qualifying heat, Slovenia knocked out Kazakhstan-2 from the fight, and Kazakhstan-1 outboarded the Czech Republic-3 from the competition.
But in the 1/8 finals, these teams could not keep up with the Russian teams. Russia-1 (Iaroslav Stepanko, Sofia Nadyrshina) was 5.34 seconds ahead of Kazakhstan-1. Russia-3 (Stepan Naumov, Darina Klink) brought an eternity of 8.23 seconds Slovenia.
Russia-2 (Vsevolod Martynov, Maria Volgina) also won a significant advantage over Japan-3.
The most dramatic in the 1/8 finals was the race of Austria-2 and the Czech Republic-2. Adam Krupa (Czech Republic) was ahead of Dominik Burgstaller (Austria), but he fell in the end. His partner Klara Sonkova had to win back almost 2 seconds. Perhaps, this would have been impossible if Pia Schoeffmann (Austria) had not made a gross mistake. As a result, Czech Republic-2 won the race with an advantage of 0.15 seconds.
In the quarterfinals, Czech Republic-2 met with Russia-2, which left no chance for the Czech to win. Martynov and Volgina were almost 3 seconds faster than their rivals.
Russia-1 made no mistakes in the race against Korea-1 (Ma/Jang), having won over 1.5 seconds from the opponents who, in general, also rode without mistakes. Japan-2 (Naoki Kanematsu, Tsubaki Miki) by far took advantage of the mistakes of the Italian duet of Lantschner/Coratti and finished with an advantage of 4.53 seconds.
But Russia-3 was unable to make it to the semifinals. Stepan Naumov and Matthaeus Pink (Austria-1) finished almost simultaneously. But in the ladies’ competition, Darina Klink made a mistake, and Austrian Martina Ankele finished in splendid solitude.
The semi-final battle between Russia-1 and Russia-2 was called a hidden final by many. Stepanko and Martynov crossed the finish line almost simultaneously. But a duel between Sofia Nadyrshina and Maria Volgina was La grande finale. Well, this season Nadyrshina has not lost to almost anyone, even at an adult level. Nor did she this time. Russia-2 became the only team that lost less than a second to Russia-1.
In the second semifinals, Pink (Austria) buried himself in the snow almost immediately after the start but caught up with Kanematsu before the finish line. Miki was slightly ahead of Ankele by the middle of the course. The Austrian tried to get her rival risking on the turns, but fell and missed her ticket to the final.
In the small finals, both Pink and Ankele made gross mistakes, so Austria-1 took only fourth place. The bronze medal was won by Russia-2 (Vsevolod Martynov, Maria Volgina).
In the final, Iaroslav Stepanko laid serious groundwork for his partner. So try and dare to win it back! Remembering that, even without a handicap, Sofia Nadyrshina does not afford her opponents any chance, this would be much tougher. Of course, the Russian finished first! Japan-2 won the silver.
As a result, in the overall standings, Russia bypassed Japan in the world championship in snowboarding– six gold medals against five. In total, Russia is ahead with 13 medals, and Japan got 10.
It is worth noting that Sofia Nadyrshina became the only three-time winner of the world championship in Krasnoyarsk: “To stand on the highest step of the podium is always an honor, and you are proud when the anthem of your country is played. This is not the first time I am riding a team race with Iaroslav, I like to ride with him, so everything worked out as we planned. We proved once again that we are the best.”
