Canada's Thompson, Del Bosco both 2nd in World Cup ski cross
Thompson 2nd in overall women's standings; Del Bosco 3rd in men's
Marielle Thompson and Chris Del Bosco both earned World Cup second place finishes in ski cross on Saturday.
Montreal's Del Bosco went into the big finals with the first-place red bib and just missed out on a first-place finish. Del Bosco sits in third-place in the World Cup rankings.
Thompson, from Whistler, B.C., was fourth out of the gate in the final round but managed to fight her way back up to a second-place finish, holding her overall second-place World Cup ranking.
"This track is a little different than some of the others on the World Cup circuit. It has a long straight way with big jumps and lots of rhythm sections," said Thompson of the new venue and course. "The start was challenging but I'm very happy with my second-place finish. I'll be looking for more tomorrow."
Course reports indicated the course was built on a nice, flat run, similar to the slope of the X Games, which allowed builders to crate an open, yet challenging track. Due to tough weather conditions, including high winds, athletes only had two attempts to master the start of the track.
"It was tough to get fired up with a couple days off and only two training runs, two days ago," said Del Bosco of the weather conditions that hindered training runs. "I feel really good to be back on the podium on the World Cup circuit after my result at the X Games. I've been skiing well and I can hopefully take today's race and build on it for tomorrow's race."
Mathieu Leduc from Comox, B.C. qualified all the way through to the semifinals where he crashed, resulting in an 8th place finish. Leduc did not race in the small finals due to his crash.
In the men's final, Slovenia's Filip Flisar was first, followed by Del Bosco, with Austria's Christoph Wahrstoetter in third-place and France's Bastien Midol in fourth-place.
In the ladies' heats, current World Cup leader Anna Holmlund, from Sweden, took first-place, followed by Thompson, with Sweden's Sandra Naeslund in third place and France's Alizee Baron in fourth-place.