Snowboarding World Cup's anthem blunder leaves Karl smiling

The Snowboarding World Cup kicked off last weekend. The inaugural competition whisked the competitors away to Carezza, Italy, for a parallel giant slalom race.

Karl went on to secure third place, marking his 45th time on the World Cup podium.

Karl performed even better in Saturday's follow-up competition. He was unbeaten, triumphing over fellow Austrian Andreas Prommegger in the final. The podium was rounded off by Italian Roland Fischnaller, whereas Kwiatkowski didn’t make it past the eliminations.

- Winning is always a pleasure. But sharing the podium with two good friends is simply wonderful. We're the three oldest competitors in the World Cup. We laugh about this fact because it seems experience really does count - said Karl, for whom this marked his first victory in Italy.

The award ceremony wasn’t without its share of blunders, as reported by Austrian sports channel ORF. To Karl's amusement, the Australian anthem was played in place of the Austrian one.

"Austria or Australia? The confusion strikes again. This time at the awards ceremony following the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy" - the official Instagram account reported, accompanying the post with a video of the incident.

Despite the mix-up, the Austrian athlete took it all in stride. A smile spread across his face as the anthem played, undeterred by the mistake of not hearing the correct anthem.