South Korean snowboarder Lee Sang-ho took fifth place in the men's parallel giant slalom competition at the International Ski Federation Freestyle Ski & Snowboard World Championships.

Lee, 21, reached the quarterfinals in the men's PGS at the worlds in Sierra Nevada, Spain, on Thursday (local time). He was beaten by Benjamin Karl of Austria by 2.54 seconds but ranked fifth because of his qualification time.

The snowboarders who didn't reach the semifinals are ranked according to their qualification rank. Lee qualified fifth among 55 competitors with a combined time of 1 minute, 20.85 seconds after two qualification runs. In the round of 16, he edged passed Patrick Bussler of Germany by 1.5 seconds.

Andreas Prommegger of Austria, who took the parallel slalom title on Wednesday, also won the PGS after defeating Karl by 0.12 second.

Lee became the first South Korean to win a FIS World Cup silver medal earlier this month after finishing second at an event in Turkey. He is ranked fifth in this season's World Cup PGS standings. 

Lee is one of the medal hopefuls for South Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Last month, he won two gold medals at the Asian Winter Games in Japan. (Yonhap)