Medals update: Top-ranked Austrians grab the gold in team parallel slalom

PyeongChang 2018 silver winners Austria (Katharina Truppe, Stefan Brennsteiner, Katharina Liensberger, Johannes Strolz) came out on top of Beijing 2022 Alpine skiing team parallel slalom event – being contested for only the second time at the Olympics.

With an exciting head-to-head format – where members of the teams of four face off side-by-side on parallel slalom courses of 21 gates – Germany finished with the silver.

Norway took bronze just ahead of River Radamus and Mikaela Shiffrin in the U.S. team.

The first medal round at the National Alpine Skiing Centre was the small final – with semi-final losers Team USA and Norway facing off for the bronze.

Norway (and their team of Thea Louise Stjernesund, Timon Haugan, Maria Therese Tviber and Fabian Wilkens Solheim) took the third spot on the podium with the better overall times after finishing tangled 2-2.

It was heartache for the Americans – and their star skier Shiffrin – who just missed out on the medals with a fourth-place finish. It was a final chance for Shiffrin to win a medal here at these Games after a trying two weeks in which she skied out in all of her favoured individual slalom events.

And the big final – for all the marbles in the final Alpine skiing event of these Beijing Olympic Games – saw top-ranked Austria and Germany face off with some of the world’s best skiers in action on the side-by-side courses.

Austria were worthy big winners of the day too as the 2-2 score (with the fastest time separating the teams) was enough to see them win out as Team Germany had to content themselves with silver on a morning of thrilling skiing that was postponed from the night before (when it was originally scheduled) due to high winds and snow.

Alpine skiing mixed team