2023 FIS Alpine Ski World Championships, Parallel event preview: Schedule and ones to watch on Wednesday 15 February
How does the individual parallel format works? Who are the ones to watch in the men's and women's event at the alpine Worlds in Meribel? Read our preview to find out.
Alpine Skiing
Two sets of medals will be at stake on Wednesday (15 February) in the individual parallel event at the 2023 FIS Alpine Ski World Championships.
16 men and 16 women will compete in a head-to-head format over a short course: each heat consists of two runs with racers switching courses for the second run.
The skier with the lowest aggregate time wins, although the maximum deficit rule of 0.5 seconds applies after the first run.
The Parallel is a giant slalom but distances between gates are significantly shorter (16-20 metres compared to a 26-29 metre range in a regular GS).
Individual Parallel Event: Medal Favourites
The event is not part of the Olympic programme and it's the second time that it features at worlds: two years ago in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Mathieu Faivre of France claimed the men's race, while Italy's Marta Bassino and Austria's Katharina Liensberger shared gold in the women's parallel.
This season's World Cup event in Lech/Zuers, Austria was cancelled for lack of snow. Last year Slovenia's Andreja Slokar (now recovering from an injury) won the women's race ahead of Norway's Thea Louise Stjernesund, while Christian Hirschbuehl beat fellow Austrian team-mate Dominik Raschner in the men's event.
In 2020, Olympic slalom champion Petra Vlhova claimed the parallel globe after winning the only World Cup race of the season in front of USA's Paula Moltzan, with newly crowned combined world champion Alexis Pinturault edging Henrik Kristoffersen in the men's event.
Qualifications results
In the parallel qualifications on Tuesday, Stjernesund was the fastest woman on the red course finishing ahead of Bassino and Lena Duerr of Germany, while co-defending champion Liensberger missed the cut. On the blue course leader Sara Hector was 55 hundredths of a second faster than France's Clara Direz.
Rasmus Windingstad of Norway and Adrian Pertl of Austria posted the men's quickest times on the red and blue course, respective. Faivre wasn't able to finish within the top eight and won't be able to defend his title from Cortina.
You can check the men's and women's qualifiers results in the FIS website.
Day 10 at 2023 Alpine Ski World Championships: Schedule Wednesday 15 February
Parallel Event:
- Men's and Women's Parallel Event: From 12:00 CET (6:00 EST) in Meribel.
More info about the participants and competition brackets can be found on the FIS website.
How to watch the 2023 FIS Alpine Ski World Championships
The event will be available for television braodcast and livestream in various region and you can check the full list of broadcasters here.
You can also check out the live results on the FIS website and read the latest alpine skiing's stories on Olympics.com.