Snowboard ace Ramona Hofmeister (Bischofswiesen) celebrated her second victory in the third race on her comeback after a three and a half month injury break.
The bronze medalist from the 2018 Winter Games won the parallel giant slalom in Bansko, Bulgaria in the final against Poland’s Aleksandra Krol-Walas with a lead of 0.59 seconds and fueled great medal hopes for the Olympics. In the men’s category, Yannik Angenend (Lengdorf) pulled off a surprise with fourth place.
“It feels fantastic,” said Hofmeister after her 28th World Cup victory: “It was a hard day and very difficult from the start. I’m back at the top again, I’m really happy.” Hofmeister suffered a broken ankle bone and a torn lateral ligament in a training fall in Zermatt. She had to miss the start of the season with five races in 2025 and only returned to snowboarding shortly before Christmas.
Hofmeister won confidently against Kaylie Buck from Canada in the round of 16, then put in a strong final spurt against Elisa Caffont from Italy. In the semi-finals, the 29-year-old benefited from the elimination of Bulgarian Malena Zamfirova. Mathilda Scheid failed in the round of 16 against the Canadian Aurelie Moisan, but secured the second part of the standard for the Olympics with eleventh place.
Angenend achieved his best World Cup result and thus also fulfilled the requirement for the Winter Games. After a win against the Italian Edwin Coratti, he also won his quarterfinal against the Austrian Christoph Karner by a hundredth. He was left behind in the semi-finals against Arnaud Gaudet and in the small final against the Swiss Gian Casanova. The 25-year-old’s previous best World Cup result was twelfth place.
Stefan Baumeister and Elias Huber already had their tickets for the games in northern Italy (February 6th to 22nd), but both were eliminated from qualifying on Saturday. There will be a chance to make amends on Sunday at another parallel giant slalom at the same location. Before the games, there are also the World Cups in Simonhöhe (January 23rd to 24th) and Rogla (January 31st).
