It was the day of the Europeans at the season's second parallel giant slalom. Of the top 16 men and women, just three North American riders made it to the finals and Canadian Jasey Jay Anderson was the only non-European on the podium. US hopefuls Rosey Fletcher and Ian Price placed 13th and 12th, respectively.

	Parini

Some bad weather was expected for today's Snowboard FIS World Cup on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier at Kaprun, Austria, but fortunately it didn't touch the slope and the event turned out very well.

Charlie Cosnier from France got a surprising win under his belt since he does not belong to the number one contenders in parallel racing and finished 16th in the qualification run. He managed to push Anderson from the semi finals and then beat Stefan Kaltschütz (AUT) in the final duel.

"I'm really happy," Cosnier said. "In parallel races everything is possible and I became more confident the further it went," he said.

Cosnier was set to take it when Kaltschütz, who won the first final run, failed to repeat his performance in the second run. "Second is fine for me," Kaltschütz said. "I pretty much had it in my hands but made a mistake in the top part of the course. I could close the gap a little in the steep section towards the finish and had the feeling I made it while crossing the finish line, but obviously I was wrong..."

"I'm really happy. In parallel races everything is possible and I became more confident the further it went...."— Charlie Cosnier (FRA), winner

Jasey Jay Anderson met Matthieu Bozzetto in the consolation round for third place and finally managed to get the North Americans at least one podium spot. "I was ready to win, but then a Frenchman came along," Anderson joked. "At the bottom part I made some mistakes, lost my focus and this kind of happened every run. The course was very nice but hard to ride. A lot of riders, even the winners, made a lot of mistakes. Especially at the bottom there's bumps and holes. It wasn't easy riding, that's for sure. Maybe this has something to do with yesterday's SBX. It did get worse at the bottom part where you could see that the snow was softer. I'd say they should definitely have SBX races after the GS..."

Unlike Anderson, last year's Slalom and Overall World Cup winner Matthieu Bozzetto from France liked the course a lot. "I'm happy since I'm getting back to where I concluded last year," he said. His teammate Nicolas Huet, who won the Sestriere race, was knocked out by Anderson in the first round but is in front of Anderson in the World Cup standings.

	Idesheim

It was a surprising win also for Italian Margerita Parini who is the number one GS racer on the tour but never before managed to win a parallel event. "My first one," Parini said. "I always regarded it to be very difficult but now I know it's possible."

Germany's Sandra Farmand ended up second. Having finished the first final run by one hundredth of a second behind Parini she tried to make it up in the second but crashed. "That's great," Farmand said. "I'm really happy since I rode well and that's even more important to me." Austrian Manuela Riegler took third, ahead of Sweden's Aasa Windahl. Isabelle Blanc (FRA), who was beaten by Parini in the quarter finals, ended up sixth but is still leading the World Cup standings. Farmand could move up to second ahead of Parini.

The Kaprun World Cup stage will be concluded with the Parallel Slalom tomorrow before the World Cup heads off to Canada.

—Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent