Melbourne snowboarder Joh Shaw has climbed to a career-high world ranking of five after finishing in fourth place in a World Cup event in Kreischberg, Austria.

It was the third top five finish in four races this season for the 26-year-old Mt Buller rider, but importantly, her first in the Olympic discipline of parallel giant slalom.

Shaw qualified in ninth position, then defeated German rider Isabella Laboeck in both runs of their round of 16 head-to-head encounter.

The Australian Institute of Sport athlete accounted for Swiss rider Patrizia Kummer in the quarter final before going down to World Cup leader Doris Guenther of Austria in the semi-final.

Shaw was just 12 hundredths of a second behind Guenther in their first head-to-head battle, but went out of the course in the second run as she pressed to make up the deficit.

Another Austrian, veteran rider Claudia Riegler, was also too quick for the Australian in the contest for bronze.

Guenther went on to take the gold medal, defeating Japanese rider Tomoka Takeuchi in the final.

It was the second time this season that Shaw has ridden to fourth place, having also produced fourth and fifth placings in the shorter parallel slalom, a non-Olympic discipline.

“The course (today) was very long and very technical, but it was fun to ride,” Shaw said.

“I finished up fourth which I was very happy about.”

“Unfortunately in the semi-final I fell over, and I was a little disappointed but I was trying new tactics (and) I’m still very happy ending up with fourth.”

In a parallel slalom the following day (Wednesday night Australian time), Shaw finished in fourth place in the opening run of the qualification, and although she crashed in the second run, she still qualified in 11th place overall.

That put her up against parallel slalom world champion Heidi Neururer in the round of 16 final, and a series of mistakes by the Australian put paid to any chance of her progressing to the quarter-final round.

She ended the second Austrian event in 11th place, her world ranking slipping back one place to sixth.

“In my second (qualifying) run I fell over, but managed to get up and finish and still qualified in 11th place which I was very surprised about but I was happy with that.”

“Up against Heidi Neururer (in the first round of 16 final) I made many mistakes and crashed on my second run.”

Neururer finished with the bronze medal behind gold medallist Amelie Kober of Germany and Takeuchi, who collected her second silver in two days.

As the alpine snowboard World Cup circuit takes a break for the World Championships in Korea, Guenther leads an Austrian duo at the top of the Cup standings on 3308 points, with team-mate Neururer second on 2600 points.

Shaw is in sixth place on 1718 points.

The World Championship PGS and PSL events will be held in Gangwon, South Korea, on January 20 and 21.

Athlete Audio
To visit the OWI Gallery and hear audio of Joh Shaw following the event, please click here.