With a magical second descent, Petra Vlhova erased her delay of 0.72 sec after the first run, the Slovak grabbed the gold medal in the women’s slalom at the Beijing 2022 Olympics.
The No 1 in slalom this season took full advantage of the fact that the tracer of the second run was her coach Mauro Pini and recorded the best time in it. This allowed her to climb from 8th to first place in the final, and only 0.08 sec behind her was the world champion from Cortina d’Ampezzo 2021 Katharina Liensberger.
The Austrian was 7th after the first descent, but lost 0.14 sec to Petra Vlhova in the second run and won the silver. The bronze went to Wendy Holdener (Switzerland), who was 0.12 sec slower than Petra Vlhova in the final standings.
The fourth, out of the medal zone, today is Lena Duerr, who was in the lead after the first run and had an advance of 0.72 sec over Petra Vlhova. In her second run on the track, however, the German made several mistakes, especially in the final steep part, where Petra Vlhova was very fast and lost a full 0.91 sec over the Slovak.
Petra Vlhova’s title did not come without luck and relegation of her rivals. The first big name to leave the race was Mikaela Shiffrin (USA), who dropped out in the first run earlier today. The second most serious contender to improve the time of Petra Vlhova was Sara Hector (Sweden). The Olympic champion in the giant slalom had a lead of almost half a second in the last control but made a mistake when entering the steep part of the final and one of the stakes went between her skis.
The program of the women’s competitions in alpine skiing at the Beijing 2022 Olympics continues on Friday, when the super-giant slalom will take place.