Swiss dominate final parallel GS

STONEHAM, Quebec – Heinz Inniger won the men’s event while Fraenzi Kohli took the women’s giving Switzerland the sweep at the World Cup Triple Final snowboarding competition Friday.Aspen local Chris Klug -the bronze medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics – finished 18th, just missing the 16-rider finals by two spots.

Steamboat Springs’ Justin Reiter was 11th and Tyler Jewell of Sudbury, Mass., was 14th. Michelle Gorgone, also of Sudbury, had the top U.S. finish among the women in 15th.Siegfried Grabner of Austria earned the silver in the men’s competition while Swiss Marc Iselin finished third.

“Today, I fought really hard,” Inniger said. “First, I was pretty disappointed about my qualification result but in the final I had the good fortune which I didn’t have the season before.”Claudia Riegler of Austria won the silver in the women’s event while teammate Marion Kreiner took bronze in the final race of the season.

Kohli said she had a perfect race in the final.”Although the training wasn’t good at all, I finally found my rhythm in the finals,” she said. “I was able to refocus on every single run and had a lot of fun, too, which is very important for me.”