Canadian Panorama crew defeated Slovenia in team slalom
Author: Steve Hubrecht
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Panoramic alpine racer Cassidy Gray and her three teammates in the Canadian mixed team parallel slalom were defeated by Slovenia in the first round of the Beijing Olympics.
Gray took part in her second race at the Beijing Games on Sunday, February 20, in the mixed team parallel discipline, after previously competing in the Women’s Giant Slalom (GS) at the Olympics.
The mixed parallel slalom is relatively new at the Olympics, as it became an official medal sport only four years ago at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea. The competition is competed by national teams consisting of four skiers (two women and two men). In each round, the two countries compete directly against each other in the form of the elimination style. Two skiers, one from each country, ski on a series of parallel identical pistes at the same time, and the one who crosses the finish line first gets one point for his country. After the race of all eight skiers (four from each country), the country with the most points is placed in the next round. If the result is a tie, then the country with the best total time (total time of all four skiers) goes to the next round.
The event was originally scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 19, but strong winds at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Center, about an hour outside of Beijing, forced the parallel mixed team slalom race to be postponed to the next day.
Canada competed with Slovenia immediately, in the 1/8 finals, and the winning team then moved to the quarterfinals. Canadian Erin Mielzynski was the first on the track for Canada to beat Slovenian Ana Bucik, giving the Canadians a 1-point advantage. Slovenian Miha Hrobat then defeated Canadian Erik Read and tied the competition between Canada and Slovenia with 1 point. Gray then went on the track, but was defeated by Slovenian Andreja Slokar and Slovenia took the lead with 2: 1 in points. Trevor Philp defeated Slovenian Jan Kranjec and equalized with 2: 2, but the Slovenians qualified for the quarterfinals, as they had a better overall team time.
In the end, the gold medal was won by the best ranked Austrian mixed parallel team. American superstar alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who previously shocked observers at the Games because she was disqualified in both slalom and giant slalom (events in which she previously won Olympic gold), missed out on her latest bid for an Olympic medal in Beijing. Games after she finished in fourth place in the mixed slalom with her American teammates, and was defeated by Norway in the bronze medal round.