An unexpected silver medal in the World Cup parallel giant slalom snowboarding event in Chile last week had Mark Fawcett reconsidering his decision to retire.

The right place at the right time
Fawcett, 30, was in Valle Nevado on a promotional photo shoot for kite snowboarding when he was asked by the Canadian coach to fill in Sunday for Jasey-Jay Anderson, who suffered a concussion in Thursday's snowboard cross.

"I'm totally shocked with the medal," said Fawcett, a two-time Olympian. "Now I'm really confused about retirement. I guess what helped me today was the fact that this is my favourite stop on the tour, I felt absolutely no pressure and I had some great new equipment that really rocks. I timed my shoot to be here during the World Cup so I could see my friends. But I never expected to compete. I guess I've come out of retirement."

In his first run, Fawcett fell and lost valuable time that he could not make up on the second run, which he won. Olympic bronze medallist Christopher Klug of the U.S., won the bronze medal final. "I almost won," said Fawcett. "I just made one lousy turn out of the gate on the first run and fell. I got him on the second run but not by enough."

Great weekend for Canadian boarders
As previously covered on Natives, Drew Neilson of North Vancouver, B.C. won Canada's first gold medal, capturing the snowboard cross, on Thursday, while Maelle Ricker also from Vancouver won the womens halfpipe.

The next stop on the World Cup is Oct. 29-31 in Solden, Austria.


[Source: Canadian Press]

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