The leader in the Giant Slalom of alpine skiing Petra Vlhova won the start of the most technical discipline in the Swedish winter center Are and approached a second consecutive little crystal globe. Last year, she first lead the final slalom ranking in her career, and now made an important step towards duplicating her achievement.
Second in the race was Katharina Liensberger of Austria at only 0.20 seconds behind the winner, and the third ordered the American ice queen Mikaela Shiffrin with 0.64 seconds of lag.
Mikaela Shiffrin was second after the first round, but the younger Austrian skier managed to override her for the run-up position.
Top 10 added Wendy Holdener (+0.69), Lena Duerr (+1.67), Franziska Gritsch (+1.80), Ana Bucik (+1.91), Michelle Gisin (+1.91), Paula Moltzan (+2.23), and Kristin Lusdahl (+2.39).
Petra Vlhova overtook Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami in the standings for the World Cup overall title, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, which a Slovakian has never won. Petra Vlhova, with 100 points, moved 64 points ahead of Gut-Behrami through 28 of 33 races this season in a competition that will come down to next week’s World Cup Finals in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
“Of course I feel pressure, but I know how to manage this pressure”, said Petra Vlhova, who owns five world championships medals, including giant slalom gold in 2019. The Slovakian said she feels tired after stating all 28 World Cup races so far this season.
This is a 12th victory in the most technical discipline in her career and is already sole in the ninth position in women on this indicator. She has already triumphed in seven of the last ten launches in Slaloms.
