2020_Alpine_Skiing_World_Cup_–_Men's_parallel
2020 Alpine Skiing World Cup – Men's parallel
Alpine ski discipline year standings
The men's parallel competition in the 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup was contested as a World Cup discipline separate from slalom for the first time in 2020. Prior to the season, FIS decided to combine parallel skiing events (including all of parallel giant slalom, parallel slalom, and city events (parallel slaloms held on courses built within cities)) into a new discipline, joining the existing disciplines of downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and combined. The discipline winner would receive a small crystal globe, similar to the other disciplines.[1] However, at the same time, FIS decided to drop the city events to reduce the amount of travel required during the World Cup season, planning to replace them with more parallel events at regular venues.[2]
2020 men's parallel World Cup
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| Previous: 2019 | Next: 2021 |
The parallel format was also changed to make the race more TV-friendly. Parallel races now began with one classic qualification run to determine the top 32, who advanced to the elimination phase of the main competition. The round of 32 used the existing run and re-run format, so that each competitor got to start from each side, but from the round of 16 forward, there was only one run per race and a direct knockout system—the loser of each race was gone.[3] However, the new format immediately became controversial, as making two giant slalom courses equal in a single-run format proved close to impossible, and the first men's parallel giant slalom races suffered from "the luck of the draw" becoming determinative: all eight round-of-16 matches were won by the racer on the same randomly-selected course.[4]
Ultimately, only two parallel events, both parallel giant slaloms, were scheduled and held in the 2019–20 season. Swiss skier Loïc Meillard won the second event and also won the first-ever discipline championship for men in parallel. At this time, individual parallel races were not included in the season finals, which were scheduled in 2020 for Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy but were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
