This day will go down in the history of Polish snowboarding. Polish athletes reached for historic medals.

The parallel giant slalom was the first competition of this year’s championships. At the start line stood six of the Polish athletes, of which two advanced to the round of sixteen. Aleksandra Król – the fourth in the general classification of the World Cup and Oskar Kwiatkowski, leading in the men’s category. The leaders of the Polish team have proven their top form in the qualification, taking fifth and second place respectively.

In the quarter-final, the Polish side faced a more difficult task. Król’s rival was Claudia Riegler (4th), who was ranked higher in the preliminaries. The Austrian started well, but on one of the goals she did not maintain her balance, losing precious seconds. In the end, the Pole won by 4.50 seconds, advancing to the medal zone.

In the battle for the grand final, King faced the qualifier’s triumphant Daniela Ulbing. Unfortunately, the Pole lost decisively, by 1.91 seconds.
The 32-year-old Król took the bronze medal in the decisive race in the parallel giant slalom. Król took advantage of Lucia Dalmasso’s mistakes, built herself a safe lead during the competition and reached the finish line. This was the first medal for Poland in the World Championships in alpine snowboarding.

Kwiatkowski, who competed with current Olympic champion Benjamin Karl won by 0.23 s, thus guaranteeing himself at least a silver medal. Shortly afterwards, he took part in the grand finale. After defeating Benjamin Karl in the semi-finals, the Pole had to face Dario Caviezel. After an extremely fierce competition, it was Kwiatkowski who proved to be better by 0.26s and won the historic title of world champion! On the lowest step of the podium stood Austrian Alexander Payer.

This is not the end of the performances of Poles at the World Cup. On Tuesday (February 21) they will compete in the slalom, and a day later there will be a competition of micro-skiing. The Poles will be among the candidates for a medal.