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St. Peter must be a snowboarder... That's probably the only reasonable explanation for the perfect conditions the NOKIA Snowboard FIS World Cup continues to see this year. This second stage, with the season's first Parallel Giant Slalom, turned out to be just the same: sunny blue skies made the head-to-head duels a real fun event with exciting races.

	Blanc & Huet

The US team members seemed to be encouraged by this and really pushed themselves down the slope, especially in the women's race in which both Rosey Fletcher and Sondra van Ert made their way to the finals. Only France's Isabelle Blanc was able to shove her way in when, in the semi-finals, she sent van Ert to the consolation round and advanced to the finals. She then faced Rosey Fletcher to duel for first and second place.

"When I finished my run I thought it was Rosey...and it took me like five minutes before I got it...." — Isabelle Blanc, winner

Fletcher was encouraged to go for it, not only because she turned 24 today but because the two of them have a little rivalry goin' on: For the second time after the World Championships they have faced each other in the finals and it was Blanc once again. However, Fletcher really enjoyed the race.

"The race was terrific, the sun was out today, the course preparing people did an excellent job and there was a really great level of racing today, so I'm really excited to get second today." She was close to winning the race and so thought Blanc as she crossed the finish line. In the first final run she had lost almost half a second to Fletcher and crossing the finish line she did not even recognize that she had closed the gap.

	Fans?

"When I finished my run I thought it was Rosey," she said, "and it took me like five minutes before I got it. All the US team was cheering at them but I withstood it... It was the same situation as at the World Championships, but I was wearing the same bib number and it turned out to be the same result as well."

Sondra van Ert finally finished third: "The Amercians haven't done very well in the dual. Our head coach, Peter Foley, is at home and I wanted to blow him away and have two Americans in the finals. He got a phone call with second and third and I think he's still psyched that we've done it."

The men's race was a pure European thing with Nicolas Huet winning and the Swedes Stephen Copp and Richard Richardsson in second and third. Huet was really motivated for this race: "This is my third time in Sestriere and I've always made it to the podium. I was kind of convinced that I could make it and this pushed me a lot."

The Sestriere event will be concluded with Rosey Fletcher's birthday dinner but there's not a lot of time to party since the next event is already on for next weekend at Kaprun (Austria).

—Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent