World Cup in Switzerland: Snowboarder builder gets surprisingly World Cup silver

The German snowboarder Stefan Baumeister surprisingly won the silver medal in the parallel giant slalom at the World Cup in St. Moritz. The 31-year-old celebrated the greatest success of his career. He only lost to Roland Fischnaller from the Italian team in the final, but still gave Snowboard Germany an unexpectedly famosen start to the highlight of the season in Switzerland. This seemed to be in his pants in the morning when co -favorite Ramona Hofmeister had failed in qualification.

But then Baumeister came and switched off the favorite Tim Mastnak (Slovenia), Cody Winters (USA) and the qualifying fastest Sangho Lee from South Korea in the Ko round. In the grand finale, he only lacked 0.09 seconds on the 44 -year -old South Tyrolean Fischnaller.

Baumeister had previously won bronze twice at the 2019 World Cup and thus its only single medals so far. After that, he kept fighting with problems on the snowboard and this season had never made it under the top ten in the World Cup at twelve parallel giant slaloms.

Hofmeister experiences huge disappointment

While Baumeister surprised, Hofmeister experienced a used day in the Engadine sun. The 28-year-old underwent a heavy mistake in qualification, so that she had no chance of a place in the top 16 and thus moving into the co-round. The Oberbayiner, who had traveled as a medal favorite, still have chances in the parallel slalom and in the team event this weekend.

Teammate Cheyenne Loch resigned in the round of 16 against the World Cup team winner and later silver medalist Tsubaki Miki from Japan. World champion became an exceptional athlete Ester Ledecka. The Czech, who is both the Snowboard and Alpine skis Olympic champion, won her third World Cup gold.

In the men, Elias Huber had caught it as a second German in the Ko round in the round of 16 against the Italian Maurizio Bormolini.