Carezza, Italy – Caroline Calve obviously likes the World Cup parallel giant slalom snowboard course at Carezza.
The 34-year-old Canadian from Lachine, Quebec near Montreal, who won her only World Cup event there exactly one year ago, added a silver medal Friday, the only Canadian to stand on the podium.
After qualifying fourth – the only Canadian woman to qualify – Calve beat Patrizia Kummer of Switzerland, Claudia Riegler of Austria and Stefanie Mueller of Switzerland before losing in the gold medal final to Tomoka Takeuchi of Japan. It was Takeuchi’s first career World Cup win.
“It took quite a while to finally stand on,” acknowledged Takeuchi. “I didn’t expect this because I wasn’t riding that much before. I just got back eight days ago. As a consequence I was pretty nervous. But this is for sure the best day in my life now!”
“It’s bitter sweet today,” said Calve, a seven-year Canadian national team veteran. “Obviously I’m super stoked to be on the podium again. That’s a perfect start to the season. But I know that I could have won it if I didn’t fall. But you know it’s who stands up lasts the longest.”
In the first run of the final Calve made what coach Mark Ballard called a “little mistake” but it caused her to fall and cost her a 1.5-second penalty for the second run. She was unable to make up that time.
“It was a technical mistake,” Calve said. “I inclined too much on a turn. It was the end of the day and the snow was pretty chewed up.”
“That’s enormous on the World Cup,” Ballard said of the penalty. “But she had such an amazing day. When she was on line, doing her turns, no one could catch her. But she just made some little mistakes near the end of the day.”
Calve, whose victory last year was the first ever for a Canadian woman on the World Cup snowboard alpine circuit, had perhaps her most amazing run in the fourth round against Mueller. She made one of her few mistakes and fell, but somehow managed to recover and still overtake and beat Mueller.
“I crashed on the pitch, but it was at the right spot so I was able to get right back up,” she explained “I was able to use the bottom of the pitch (to regain speed) and I still had enough of the hill to catch her. I know I’m good on the flats so thought I just had to make it through the pitch and then give it in the transitions and flats.”
“I don’t know that that’s ever happened before on the World Cup.” marvelled Ballard. “But she was faster than anyone else on the course today. It was just a great day for her.”
On the men’s side, Matthew Morison of Burketon, Ontario, was the only Canadian to reach the finals and he finished ninth overall after losing to Benjamin Karl of Austria. Andreas Prommegger of Austria won the event with countryman Lukas Mathies second and Vic Wild of Russia third.
“This is a perfect start into the season,” said Prommegger. “This year, it was tough because we did start very late. It wasn’t easy for me to stay focused throughout all the trainings as we did start with preparations in August already.”
OFFICIAL RESULTS
FIS Snowboard World Cup
Carezza, Italy – Dec. 21, 2012
Parallel Giant Slalom
WOMEN:
1 Tomoka Takeuchi – JPN
2 Caroline Calvé – Lachine, QC, Canada
3 Anke Karstens – GER
MEN:
1 Andreas Prommegger – AUT
2 Lukas Mathies – AUT
3 Vic Wild – RUS