After they already claimed victory a few days ago on the 2010 Olympic course at Cypress, Lindsey Jacobellis (USA) and Markus Schairer (AUT) also secured Gold at Stoneham last week and thus extended their Snowboard Cross World Cup lead. In the sixth SBX race of the current season of the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup, the US-American successfully competed against Mellie Francon (SUI), Maelle Ricker (CAN) and Zoe Gillings (GBR) who came in second, third and fourth respectively. On the men’s side, the reigning World Champion from Austria secured his back-to-back win against Jonathan Cheever and Seth Wescott from the USA and Canada’s Robert Fagan who finished fourth.


Jacobellis (right) leads Gillings and FreiHowever, before Schairer crossed the finish line first it definitely didn’t looked like another win for the Austrian rider as Robert Fagan took off for a wire-to-wire in the men’s final. Fagan also had dominated the qualifiers posting the best time and won his quarter and semi final. But on the way to his first ever World Cup triumph, the 32-year-old Canadian screwed up the second-to-last hip jump opening the door to Schairer’s second win in a row. “I’m so disappointed as I was nicely in the lead” stated Fagan after the final. “I skied out that hip jump and couldn’t hold it. I was feeling super good and went for it. I completely screwed it up. I should have ridden smarter” added Fagan after he had missed his career’s third World Cup podium.

Thus, one man’s poison was another man’s meat as like in Cypress last week, Markus Schairer was the one who once again was able to benefit the most from a mistake of one of his competitors. Especially as his “batteries were all empty before the start of the finals.” This became obvious after the very last heat of the day had taken off when the World Cup leader (4.160 points) entered the first roller section in fourth position. “But then I passed Seth (Wescott) in the first bank and Jonathan (Cheever) in the second turn. I would have been more than just OK with the second rank but now I’m super happy with even more points to defend my World Cup lead” 21-year-old Schairer said.

Jacobellis “Queen of Stoneham”

Francon and Cheever all smiles, too