Vic Wild wins snowboarding slalom for second Olympic gold

SOCHI, Russia, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Vic Wild, American-born but now a citizen of Russia, won his second gold medal of the Olympics Saturday by capturing the snowboard parallel slalom.

Wild was granted Russian citizenship three years ago when he married Alena Zavarzina. They both won a medal in the parallel giant slalom earlier this week -- Wild capturing the gold and Zavarzina the bronze.

In the regular slalom, Wild had the fastest qualifying time, then defeated Michael Lambert of Canada in the first round of side-by-side racing, took out Roland Fischnaller of Italy in the quarterfinals and defeated Benjamin Karl of Austria in the semifinals.

Wild took on Zan Kosir of Slovenia in the finals and finished the first of two runs with a lead of .12 of a second. There were no mistakes in the second run for Wild, whose overall winning margin was .23 of a second.

Karl took the bronze medal with a victory over Aaron March of Italy.

Austria's Julia Dujmovits won the women's parallel slalom event, defeating Anke Karstens of Germany in the finals by .84 of a second. The bronze medal went to another German, Amelie Kober.

Among Dujmovits' victims was Zavarzina, who was defeated in the opening round after posting the 13th best qualifying time.

The United States won the medal race in the 10 snowboarding events with three golds and five medals overall. Russia and Switzerland had two golds each.