Poles win gold and bronze at snowboarding World Championships

Poles won first and third place in the parallel giant slalom competition at the 2023 FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia on Saturday.

Oskar Kwiatkowski, a 26-year old Alpine snowboarder, overtook the Swiss Dario Caviezel in the final by 0.26 s. Third place was taken by the Austrian Alexander Payer.

Before the Saturday event, Kwiatkowski's greatest achievement was first place in the snowboarding World Cup parallel giant slalom competition at the Swiss resort of Scuol in January. He also won second place in Rogla, Slovenia, last year and also ranked second in Scuol five years ago.

The Pole competed in Alpine snowboarding in last year's Winter Olympics in Beijing, where he finished in seventh place.

In the 2021 world championships, Kwiatkowski placed seventh in the slalom and 11th in the giant.

Another Pole, 32-year old Aleksandra Krol, outperformed Italian Lucia Dalmasso in the race for third place. The gold was won by the Japanese Tsubaki Miki, and the silver by the Austrian Daniela Ubing, who defeated Krol in the semi-finals.