The 2022-23 Para Alpine and Nordic World Cup season began with two of the three disciplines (Alpine and Cross Country) in action. The Para Snowboard World Cup will have its kick off next weekend in Big White (CAN).
Alpine: the iconic resort of St. Moritz (SUI) opened the Para Alpine World Cup season with six slalom races and two giant slaloms from December 8-11. Sweden’s Ebba Aarsjoe and Frenchman Arthur Bauchet came out on top of all of the weekend’s races in what was a dream start to the season.
Cross Country: Vuokatti (FIN) is playing host to an epic 10-day Nordic World Cup opening with the last events scheduled for the 18th December. In the sitting category, Giuseppe Romele (ITA) cam out on top of the 5km race, while Anja Wicker (GER) topped the women’s standings. Wicker also took the victory in the Sprint race, while Colin Cameron (CAN) won the men’s Sprint competition. In the standing category, Benjamin Daviet (FRA) earned the victory in the men’s Sprint and Taiki Kawayoke (JPN) taking the win the 5 km individual start race. The last day featured three classifications: sitting, vision impaired and standing for both men and women meaning there was six more exciting competitions. Giuseppe Romele (ITA) continued his winning streak in sit skiing classic and took the win in 10 km race. Collin Cameron (CAN) took the second place and Yerbol Khamitov (KAZ) was third. The fight for third place was really tight and was decided by only 0,5 seconds, when Brazilian Cristian Westermaier Ribeira ending in fourth place. On the women’s side in the sit skiing classic 10 km race Anja Wicker (GER) continued dominating the competition and took her fourth win during the week-long opening event in as many races. Yunji Kim (KOR) took second place and Lyne-Marie Bilodeau (CAN) got third. In the vision impaired class, Linn Kazmaier (GER) took the victory, her teammate Leonie Maria Walter came in second place. Third place went to Ukraine’s Oksana Shyshkova. On the men’s side vision impaired category, the podium was all Scandinavias as Zebastian Modin (SWE) claimed the win. He was followed by Inkki Inola (FIN) and Thomas Oxaal (NOR). In the standing classes, wins went to Norway and Poland as Vilde Nilsen took the victory in women’s side while Witold Skupien kept the competitors behind on the men’s side. In the women’s competitions there was a strong team effort from Canada as Natalie Wilkie and Brittany Hudak raced for the second and third place and were only beaten by Nilsen from Norway. Similar to women, on the men’s side two skiers from Japan, Taiki Kawayoke and Yoshihiro Nitta, took the other two places on the podium in the same team.
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