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Hookom second in Austria

Daily Staff Report

In the men’s PGS, Olympic medalist Aspen’s Chris Klug posted the top U.S. finish, coming in fifth.”Today was icy and I’m not good on ice,” Hookom said after the second World Cup PGS of the new season. “So I had to challenge myself and I was able to hold it together and do well. The second run, one side of the course was worse than the other, and my second run I had the icier course and I let it get the best of me. I kept saying, “Stacey, don’t let the mountain get the best of you’ and it turned out to be a lot of fun.”Hookom, 27, a sophomore biology major at the University of Colorado,was second for the fourth time in her career. The last time was in a parallel slalom early in the 1998 season, also at Soelden.”It’s been so long since I’ve been in the finals. I’ve always wanted to win a World Cup and I’ve been close, but it just hasn’t happened. So I said, “Stacey, this is your chance that you’ve worked eight years for; don’t let it pass you by.’ I didn’t get the win,” she said. “But I didn’t let it pass me by. I consider myself a strong rider on the flats but Isabelle is the Olympic gold medalist and she was better today. She had a great race.”Hookom, who became a snowboarder when she and a friend saw a sign for free riding lessons at Vail more than a decade ago, said she and another friend discussed her racing during the snowboard team’s training camp at Colorado’s Copper Mountain last week. He pointed to her Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix PGS victory and both U.S. titles a year ago – and a PGS win two years ago at Breckenridge – and convinced her she could beat the other riders. Now, Hookom’s looking to be top-5 in every World Cup race, she said.”I’m so glad I got to be on the podium again,” she said. “I need to be going all-out all the time.”In the men’s race, Klug was defeated by Slovenian Dejan Kosir in the quarterfinals. Frenchman Mathieu Bozzetto went on to defeat Austrian Felix Stadler in the final and Kosir dropped to fourth behind Alexander Maier of Austria.The racing continues Wednesday with a parallel slalom.


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