World Championships: Bassino, Liensberger, Faivre win parallel golds for Italy, Austria and France

ByEurosport

Updated 16/02/2021 at 15:56 GMT

There were gold medals for Italy and France at the 2021 Alpine Skiing world championships on Tuesday. Marta Bassino for the Italians and Austria's Katharina Liensberger in the women's race and Mathieu Favre for France in the men's. However there was some more controversy as plenty of viewers were left unsatisfied by the standard of the two courses.

Italy's Marta Bassino and Austria's Katharina Liensberger shared the women's parallel gold at the Alpine skiing world championships on Tuesday.

Mathieu Faivre handed France a first gold of the championships in the men's event.

The events, in which pairs of racers compete against each other on two runs down parallel giant slalom pistes, were being held for the first time at championship level.

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Marta Bassino takes gold in women's parallel slalom

Bassino was initially awarded the gold medal outright, but it was later clarified that Liensberger also took first place as she recorded the same aggregate time over the two-leg final.

Croatia's Filip Zubcic was second in the men's event. The bronze medals went to France's Tessa Worley and Switzerland's Loic Meillard respectively.

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The event has been seen by the FIS as one way to spice up the viewing experience, particularly for new fans of the sport, but the results have been mixed at best.

Whilst it is certainly thrilling to watch the two skiers go down the piste side by side, the event has regularly courted attention for the standard of the two runs, with fans unhappy with a clear advantage for the skier on track.

Mathieu Favre secures gold in parallel slalom

Former British skier Graham Bell, who now works as a TV pundit, tweeted his shock saying "Anyone watch the Parallel race at the Cortina World Championships?

"The blue course was about .75 slower, yet on the first run .50 was the maximum lead allowed. So if you had blue first you had a massive advantage."

In January 2020 there was controversy as previously unheralded Clara Direz stunned double-Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin in a parallel at Sestriere.

Former ski racer Kilian Albrecht, now Shiffrin's manager, told Eurosport at the time:

"The FIS has been experimenting for a number of years with an event that has potential but they can't find a way to make it simple, fair and cool. It was the same with the guys in Alta Badia where clearly one run was faster too,

"You need to eliminate these factors in any sport to at least put an effort into it but they apparently do not want to do that."

Additional reporting via Reuters.

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