World Pro Ski Tour 2023 Taos World Championships Giant Slalom Results

Tricia Mangan, 2x Olympian and U.S. World Cup Athlete and Jeffrey Read, A FIS World Championships bronze medalist for Team Canada skied away with the victories on today’s 2023 World Pro Ski Tour Taos World Championships Giant Slalom races.

Yesterday’s weather struggles with high winds and fresh snow made way for a picture book New Mexico day of bluebird skies and warm sun in Taos Ski Valley’s Kachina Basin. A field of Olympians, World Champions, World Cup athletes and NCAA racers who traveled to New Mexico again met to try their luck on the dual courses, this time for a giant slalom.

WOMEN

The women’s field started with a round of 16 that saw the early elimination of 2022 Tour Champion, Tuva Norbye of Norway, while Tricia Mangan began her push to the finals after a strong but wild day of skiing in Friday’s super slalom, where she finished fourth. No other surprises in this round.

Into the round of eight, the competition heated up and racing was neck and neck. Paula Moltzan, Friday’s super slalom World Champion, skied aggressively and earned the advantage of .247 in the first run against Emma Hammergard of Sweden. Hammergard matched Moltzan at the top of the course, then Moltzan got into the soft snow around a gate and was unable to recover, allowing Hammergard to advance. Tricia Mangan, skiing aggressively but more in control from her wild runs on Friday, easily put away Norway’s Mina Holtmann, while both Canadian atheltes in the women’s field, Candace Crawford and Tour leader Erin Mielzynski progressed on to the semi-finals.

Semi-finals saw Hammergard up against Mangan, and while the two matched one another through the course that was visibly softening up, Mangan pushed her risky skiing style right to the edge and came away with the victory, advancing her to the finals. The Canadians met in the semi-final round, with Mielzynski narrowly skiing away with a .01 advantage over Crawford in the first run. The bottom of the red course had been skiing faster all day, and Mielzynski used this to her advantage in the second run, advancing her to the finals to meet Mangan.

The small final between Hammergard and Crawford saw a clear victory by Crawford in the first run, giving her the maximum differential of .7 seconds. Knowing she had to put everything on the line to overcome the differential, Hammergard barged at the start of the second run and was held back by the 1400lb magnets, putting Crawford in third place and Hammergard in fourth.

Mangan and Mielzynski met in the finals, with the crowd cheering them on after a strong day of racing. Both ladies had raced into final rounds on Friday but they hid the fatigue and pushed through to the end, Mangan coming away with the win and $20,000 check. Mielzynski landed in the second position for a second day in a row, but her consistency paid off in overall World Championships standings, earining her the title of 2023 Overall World Champion that came with a $25,000 bonus.

1st: Mangan

2nd: Mielzynski

3rd: Crawford

4th: Hammergard

MEN

The men’s field started off fast and furious, with new bracket seeding based on Friday’s results. Double Olympic gold medalist, Ted Ligety, was enthusiastic about the GS, but his time out of the gates showed and he was eliminated in the round of 32 by Norway’s Louis Fausa. Tour regular, Miha Keurner, was skiing well, but was too loaded up after the second jump and crashed going into the next gate, giving Tucker Marshall, another familiar face on the Tour opportunity to advance. The other upset in the round of 32 was U.S.A.’s Brian McLaughlin – a late entry and a rookie – who outskied Norway’s Joachim Lien, who skied well in the qualifiers, but it was not his weekend at World Championships.

Into the Round of 16, Reto Schmidiger continued his dominant streak from Friday’s win, quickly eliminating Florian Swebel fo the U.S.A. Erik Read of Canada took down Norway’s Leif Haugen, while his brother Jeffrey defeated Fausa. Austrian-Bolivian Simon Breitfuss-Kammerlander, who was skiing with a dislocated shoulder from a fall on Friday, took an epic crash during his second run against River Radamus and was done for the day. In the last pairing of the round, Filip Forejtek, who skied dominantly on Friday, let the fatigue show as he was eliminated by Patrick Kenney, a U.A. athlete on Team Global Racing.

The round of eight really heated up with Schmidiger versus 2022 WPST World Champion (split with Linus Strasser), Erik Read; Schmidiger won the first heat by only .089 of a second, and Read used the faster base of the red course as his advantage in the second run to advance. His brother, Jeffrey Read, defeated Aspen’s Wiley Maple, who skied strongly on Friday but was unable to continue his run with the GS. Germany’s David Ketterer, dominant on the Tour after two wins in Bear Valley, was narrowly outskied by Taos sponsored River Radamus, who had a huge cheering section at the base of the course. U.S. Ski Team veteran and longtime Tour athlete, Michael Ankeny, made a great push to defeat Kenney and advance.

Semi-finals saw the Read brothers against one another, and they showed skiing in their genes as they matched one another down both runs, with Jeff taking the victory into the finals. Americans Radamus and Ankeny came up against one another in the semis with another tight set of runs, but Ankeny blew through a gate towards the bottom of the course and Radamus advanced.

In the small final, Ankeny showed his fatigue, skiing out in the first run and giving Erik Read the max differential that he could not make up, earning Erik the third place spot. Radamus and Jeff kept things tighter, and after Erik worked the red course advantage on the first run, Radamus was not abler to overtake Read’s speed, and Jeff Read skied to victory for the day, taking home $20,000.

A twist in points standings for the weekend overall brought Reto Schmidiger back to the podium for the 2023 Taos World Championships Overall award and $25,000 bonus.

1st: J. Read

2nd: Radamus

3rd: E. Read

4th: Ankeny

2023 TAOS OVERALL WORLD CHAMPIONS: ERIN MIELZYNSKI & RETO SCHMIDIGER