Source | December 17, 2009 | Permalink

Telluride, CO—Canadian Alpine snowboard team captured two medals – gold and silver - Thursday at the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup in Telluride, Colorado, the second Parallel Giant Slalom (PGS) event of the 2010 season on the World Cup Tour. Jasey-Jay Anderson, the reigning World Champion in the discipline, took home the gold medal by edging Canadian teammate Michael Lambert (Toronto, ON), who captured the second position, in the decisive race of the day. “Brilliant. It’s a bit of a change from Tuesday, when I was rusty and I couldn’t figure out equipment and exactly where I should have been. Finally I figured it out today, and everything was going my way. I stayed consistent and learned a lot from Tuesday’s race from the line and tactics. I still learn from experience,” said Anderson, who won his 25th FIS World Cup race. It was a gold medal race highlighting the teacher against the student. Anderson, a 15-year veteran of the Canadian Snowboard Team, stepped on the podium for the 57th time in FIS World Cup action in 204 World Cup starts.  Lambert, for his part, today stepped on the podium for the first time of his young international career. The 23 years old rider has 23 World Cup start under his belt. “It’s excellent to see Michael Lambert in Finals. It’s kind of a dream come true to end the week this way. He totally deserves it. Mike stresses a lot for the Olympic qualifications, but this result today will help him quite a bit, and we have more events coming up and he’ll go out and get what he needs,” Anderson added. These two podium finishes by Canadian snowboarders now brings up the medal tally to seven for the Canadian snowboard team, all disciplines included. Canada now has three victories, one second place and two bronze medals. Just in Telluride this week, four different athletes have stepped on podium. “Today I wanted to stay in a position to attack, and when I had the opportunity to take advantage of the course, I did so,” added Anderson The 34-year-old Anderson is now just a mere 10 point shy of Austrian Benjamin Karl in the Parallel events of the 2010 LG Snowboard FIS World Cup tour, with a total of 2050 points. Canada has three riders in the Top 6 of the World Cup Parallel rankings. Lambert is sitting in 4th position, followed by Matthew Morison (Burketon, ON) in 6th position. Lambert, a star featured on the television series Over The Bolts broadcasted by the Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Consortium, rode to the best day of his life with solid runs rounds after rounds. “First podium and the first time I crack the Top 5 in PGS. I can’t believe it actually happened. Your coaches tell you for years and years: “just train, just train, just focus, just focus—and one day it’ll happen.” Today, it happened. The best part of the day was to go against Jasey-Jay. I couldn’t be happier to be racing him in the final round. Doesn’t matter if I lost, I raced my best today,” “I was looking for that Top 5, but you know what, now that I have it, I realize that the numbers don’t matter, it’s the racing that does, and believing in yourself, that’s what’s really fun,” added Lambert. Slovenia’s Rok Flander took third place, defeating Simon Schoch of Switzerland in the bronze medal duel. Matthew Morison (Burketon, ON) did not finish the race. Morison crashed in the net in the first qualifying run of the day, sustaining a fracture of the radial head of the left arm which will put him on the sideline for a period of 4-6 weeks. The Canadian Snowboard Team coaching staff have already adjusted his training plan for the next four weeks. Canada~Snowboard National Development Group member Steve Barlow (Calgary, AB) finished in 40th position, while Canadian Team member Pat Farrell (Oakville, ON) did not finish the race. In Women’s action, Caroline Calvé (Aylmer, QC/Montreal, QC) had amazing qualifications, finishing in the 4th place of the qualifiers. In the first round, Calvé made a huge mistake with a few gates to go in the second run only to lose control of her board and concede the victory to her rival, Heidi Neurerer of Austria. Russian rider Alena Zavarzina took home the top place, edging Marion Kreiner of Austria in the gold medal duel. Austrian Ina Meschik took the third place. In total, the Austrian women’s team showed their depth by placing five riders in the Top 6. Calvé finished her day of work in 9th position. Kimiko Zakreski (Calgary, AB), who won bronze on Tuesday in the first PGS race of the week, ended her day on the slopes in 24th position. She was followed by teammate Alexa Loo (Richmond, BC) in 25th, Ariane Lavigne (Mont-Tremblant, QC) in 33rd, Ekatarina Zavialova (Calgary, AB) in 34th and Mariane Leeson (Burlington, ON) in 35th position.All photos © FIS – Oliver Kraus