Norway narrowly win mixed team Parallel World Cup in Soldeu

Norway won the season-ending mixed team Parallel World Cup title with a narrow victory over Switzerland in the final in Soldeu.

Switzerland had fought back from 1-0 down in the four-race final only for Timon Haugan to sweep Norway to victory by virtue of a faster tie-break time.

Austria claimed the bronze medal as they beat Germany 4-0 while Norway added World Cup gold to their World Championship silver, with world gold and bronze medallists America and Canada not in attendance.

Norway made it through to the final with a 4-0 win over hosts Andorra before beating out Austria 3-1 in the semi-finals.

Austria received a bye into the semi-finals but needed a tie-breaker to defeat Germany after their four races ended 2-2, winning the tie-break by just 0.21 seconds.

In the final, Thea Louise Stjernesund moved Norway into an early lead as she beat Camille Rast by 0.52 seconds, producing the fastest women’s run of the day before Livio Simonet levelled proceedings by beating Rasmus Windingstad by 0.37 seconds.

Switzerland then eked out a lead as Andrea Ellenberger took the win by the narrowest margin of the final, beating Maria Therese Tviberg by 0.33 seconds.

It all hung on the final race, which saw Norway’s Haugan beat Semyel Bissig by half a second to claim the overall win on a tiebreaker, the Norwegians’ time 0.56 seconds better than the Swiss’.

Stjernesund: “I was surprised about how hard you had to work for it because it was hard to bend the skis and get a response, so it was a fight to the last gate.

“With this flat terrain, you really have to work and push and as a Norwegian team we train on a lot of physical terrain over the whole year and then on these types of courses we get more out of it.

“It was fun but no matter where I am, I feel nervous, especially in team events. You feel pressure and responsibility for your teammates but then it feels good to contribute and do well.”

Austria were dominant in the small final, beating Germany 4-0, although they survived a scare as Julia Scheib defeated Lena Duerr by only 0.03 seconds in the third race of the bronze-medal final.

The remaining individual races of the season take place on Saturday and Sunday in Andorra with the giant slalom and slalom Crystal Globes still to be handed out.