Benjamin Karl, the winner of the parallel giant slalom, celebrates his victory on Sunday.Fabrizio Troccoli/The Globe and Mail
Austria’s Benjamin Karl became the first athlete to win four Olympic medals in snowboard by winning gold in the parallel giant slalom, a fitting and thrilling outcome for the athlete’s final Olympic games.
The clear favourite going into the race, the defending Olympic champion defeated South Korea’s Kim Sang-kyum, who took silver, with Bulgaria’s Tervel Zamfirov taking bronze.
At 40, Karl is one of the oldest competitors in the Milan Cortina Olympics – double the age of some of his rivals – proving that experience can knock out younger, stronger and cockier rivals.
Over the course of his 20-year career, Karl has made 215 World Cup starts and collected 58 podium finishes, of which 27 were victories.Fabrizio Troccoli
Karl had announced on social media in the fall that “this will definitely be my last season,” putting pressure on him to finish on the podium. He won the final on a gorgeous sunny Sunday afternoon in Livigno, one of the Olympic Alpine towns. The crowd was riveted by the race.
He was trailing Kim for much of the final, only picking up speed near the end; he crossed the line first by mere 0.19 of a second. Perhaps as stunned by his victory as the fans were, he celebrated by stripping down to the waist and flexing his muscles before letting out a huge roar and diving face-down in the snow.
Over the course of a 20-year career, Karl made 215 World Cup starts, collected 58 podium finishes, of which 27 were victories. In the World Championships, he earned eight medals, five of them gold. He won his first Olympic medal – silver – in Vancouver 2010, took bronze in Sochi 2014 and gold in Beijing in 2022. He just got better with age.
Silver medalist Sangkyum Kim of South Korea, left, gold medalist Karl, centre, and bronze medalist Tervel Zamfirov of Bulgaria.Fabrizio Troccoli
Karl, who was a flag-bearer for the Austrian team at the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday in Milan, will be a hard man to put down after he winds up his snowboarding career. He is a mountain biker and regularly competes in ultra-endurance races in Austria. Last summer, he completed a race that was almost 1,600 km long.
The Canadian competitors, men and women, went nowhere in the parallel giant slalom.
Quebec’s Arnaud Gaudet, who was Canada’s best hope to reach the podium, placed sixth overall, losing out in the quarter final. “After the race, I was really sad,” he said. “After my last little mistake, I knew it would be really close.”
Team Canada's Arnaud Gaudet competes in the Men's Parallel Giant Slalom Quarterfinals on Sunday.Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
In the women’s race, which was held just before men’s on the same slope, Czechia’s Zuzana Maderova won gold. Austria’s Sabine Payer took silver and Lucia Dalmasso of Italy took bronze. In the 32-athlete field, the highest-ranked Canadian was Montreal’s Aurelie Moisan, at 12th.
Snowboard parallel giant slalom made its Olympic debut in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
The sport sees two competitors race head-to-head down parallel courses marked by gates. No jumps or aerial tricks are required – just speed and the ability to make precise turns around the gates. The competitors typically use longer, narrower boards than freestyle snowboarders, and wear hard ski boots that look like the boots used by Alpine downhillers.
Japan and China continue their dominance of the snowboard big air competition
It’s possible that the next Winter Olympics, in the French Alps in 2030, will exclude the event. The sport is not popular in France and the International Olympic Committee announced in September that it will review its eligibility for the French Games after the conclusion of the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Another Olympic sport facing the chopping block is Nordic combined, which blends ski jumping with cross-country skiing. The sport debuted in the Chamonix Games in 1924 but has struggled with low athlete participation rates and a declining fan base.
Gaudet, the Canadian snowboarder, said all parallel giant slalom snowboarders are fighting hard to keep the sport in the Olympic roster. Pushing it out, he said, “would pretty much kill the sport because everything is based around the Olympics.”