Canadian beats fog, rain for gold

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canada's Jasey Jay Anderson thrilled the rain-soaked crowd as he raced through fog and squeezed past Austria's Benjamin Karl to win gold in the Olympic men's snowboarding parallel giant slalom on Saturday.

Anderson started with a slight time deficit after the first run of the final but made up ground in the middle of the second and finished a few board lengths ahead of Karl who took the silver.

After crossing the finish line the Canadian looked back, realized he had won and screamed as he pumped his arms in the air. The rain-soaked audience, which included his two daughters holding a 'Go Papa Gold' sign, went wild with excitement.

The Canadian, the 2009 world champion who runs a blueberry farm with his wife in the off-season, said he was in shock.

"I had so much time to make up, and in these conditions it's virtually impossible," said Anderson, who started the second final nearly a second behind Karl.

"I just thought, a true athlete thrives on adversity. So I tried to be a true athlete. I love being in that situation where I have to rise above the challenge."

The crowd chanted "Jasey Jay, Jasey Jay," rang cowbells and waved Canadian flags as the medals were presented but the fog was so bad they could barely make out the athletes on the big screen.

The riders could hardly see the next gate as they flew down the course, with the thick fog that had descended on the mountain for the women's competition on Friday sticking around.

Anderson's two young daughters were in the stands, wearing plastic ponchos over their clothes, along with hundreds of other spectators who braved the elements which ranged from hail to torrential rain throughout the day.

France's Mathieu Bozzetto won bronze after beating Russian Stanislav Detkov in the small final.

(Additional reporting by Nicole Mordant; Editing by Ed Osmond)