The Canadian Alpine skier Laurence St-Germain certainly sprung the biggest surprise at the World Alpine Skiing Championships in Courchevel and Meribel after a completely unexpected triumph in the women’s slalom.
It brought home a second gold medal for the Maple Leafs of the championships in the French Alps, where James Crawford won the men’s super giant slalom last week. It’s Canada’s fourth overall medal of the Worlds in France, as in addition to Crawford’s gold, the Canadians also have a bronze in the team start, as well as a bronze in the men’s downhill.
Laurence St-Germain was not even in the medal count before the start of today’s race, as her best World Cup slalom finish is a sixth place since Levy in November 2020. Today, she competed with the 18th starting number, but despite this from her starting position further back, she produced a great first run in which she posted a third time, 0.61 sec behind the big favorite Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), who was fastest.
In the second run, Laurence St-Germain also did a very good ride and after Mikaela Shiffrin’s inaccuracies, she deservedly took the gold medal. The silver went to Mikaela Shiffrin, who failed win her fifth world title in the event. The bronze medal was won by the German Lena Duerr, and the Norwegian Mina Fuerst Holtmann finished at the foot of the podium. The Olympic champion in the discipline from Beijing 2022, Petra Vlhova (Slovakia), who was also considered the favorite for gold today, finished fifth.
It cannot be denied that luck also played a part in Laurence St-Germain’s title win, as it would not have come to it had it not been for Wendy Holdener’s second-run exit. The Swiss was second after the first run and was on a better pace than Laurence St-Germain in the second, but made a mistake on one of the bumps in the middle of the course and left the race.
Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021 World Slalom Champion Katharina Liensberger (Austria) finished just 20th today, 1.90 sec behind the champion. Fastest in the second run was Italy’s Lara Della Mea, who finished 8th after being 26th after the first downhill earlier today.