traight from a fantastic night of parallel slalom World Cup racing on Tuesday, the first PSL mixed team competition of the 2019/20 season was on the menu on Wednesday, at day 2 of the 20th anniversary of FIS Snowboard Alpine World Cup event at the iconic Bad Gastein (AUT) venue.
Once again the conditions were just perfect in Austria, with blue-bird skies and good firm snow providing a perfect setting for what was a prime display of top-level snowboard racing in an exciting team format competition.
At the end of the day it was Germany’s Ramona Theresia Hofmeister and Stefan Baumeister standing on top of the podium, as the team who came into the competition wearing the number one bibs would live up to their number, taking an impressive victory to wrap up a strong performance for the German Snowboard Team in Bad Gastein.
In the big final while against local fans’ favourites Claudia Riegler and Andreas Prommegger, the German duo proved that they are in an excellent form right now. Carrying momentum from her previous night’s win, Hofmeister stormed through the course gaining as much as 1.40 second over Riegler and leaving Baumeister with a relatively easy task of keeping the advantage until the finish line during his run. Despite all the efforts from Prommegger, Baumeister kept it cool through his run to cross the line well ahead of his Austrian counterpart for a huge win for the German team.
“I have no words to describe my feelings now,” said Hoffmeister, “It’s just amazing to win again and today with Stefan in the first team event of the season.”
“It’s a perfect day,” followed up Baumeister, “We had a perfect slope with perfect snow today and I think that Bad Gastein is my favourite location on tour, so I hope we’ll come back here also next year.”