Austria 4 Beat Italy 2 by 0.52 Seconds in Carinthia Mixed-Team Snowboard Race

Austria 4 beats Italy 2 by 0.52 seconds in Parallel Giant Slalom team race

Klagenfurt, March 1, 2026 — Austria 4 edged Italy 2 by half-a-second on Carinthia’s Simonhöhe piste Saturday, ending Andreas Prommegger’s 11-month victory drought and giving Sabine Payer a quick rebound one day after her individual quarter-final loss.

Austrian veterans fend off Italian surge

Prommegger, 45, and Italian counterpart Roland March matched each other toe-side for toe-side until the final meters, the Austrian entering the tag zone with a 0.08-second cushion. Payer exploded off the blue-course wedge while Lucia Dalmasso took the red, but the 26-year-old local clipped a gate pad and had to scrub speed. She regrouped with a low line through the rollers and hit the finish beam first, delivering the slimmest team margin on the circuit since December’s 0.41-second thriller in Montafon.

Prommegger becomes oldest winner of 2025-26 season

The win is Prommegger’s 32nd World Cup triumph and his first since last March’s PGS in Krynica, Poland. “I kept tweaking base bevels all week—today the board finally felt like an extension of my legs,” he said. By outrunning riders half his age, the Styrian becomes the oldest athlete—male or female—to top an Alpine Snowboard World Cup podium this winter, overtaking previous record-holder Benjamin Karl, who won at 42 in 2024.

Payer turns home-snow noise into momentum

Payer admitted Friday’s crowd noise rattled her timing, yet cowbells echoing down the lift line steadied her heartbeat before the final. “When 3,000 people chant your name, hesitation isn’t an option,” she said. The result marks her first World Cup podium since a December 2025 parallel slalom in Scuol and Austria’s first mixed-team gold on home snow since Bad Gastein 2020.

Italy keeps yellow bib; USA earns historic bronze

March and Dalmasso’s runner-up finish preserves the leaders’ yellow bib for Italy after two of three scheduled mixed-team races. The duo won the Bad Gastein opener and now lead Switzerland 1 by 68 points. Earlier, 19-year-old Walker Overstake and Iris Pflum stunned top-seeded Italy 1 in the quarter-finals, then edged Slovenia 1 for bronze—the first team podium in U.S. Alpine Snowboard World Cup history.

Swiss disqualification shuffles medal picture

Switzerland 1’s medal hopes vanished when Dario Caviezel straddled gate 17 against Slovenia’s Tim Mastnak, an automatic DQ that dropped Caviezel and Julie Zogg to 112 season points. The final mixed-team showdown is set for Winterberg, Germany, on 22 March, where Italy can seal the inaugural Crystal Globe with a top-two finish.

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Action Steps

1. Track the discipline standings on FIS-Ski.com to see if Italy can clinch the Crystal Globe in Winterberg.
2. Watch replays on Infront’s YouTube channel to study how Prommegger gains speed off each toe-side turn.
3. If you ride alpine, set a training course with a 22-gate PGS rhythm—Payer credits that drill for her quick recovery.
4. Plan viewing parties for 31 January, when Rogla hosts the last World Cup before Milano-Cortina 2026 opens on 6 February.

Source: FIS Alpine Snowboard World Cup media bulletin