Industry News
The atmosphere was smashing at Killington, VT, this weekend, with thousands of fans turning out to cheer on the international elite in women’s technical skiing. Friday’s bib draw for the Giant Slalom race was a huge event with a fantastic turnout that saw Sweden’s Sara Hector with the coveted no. 1 bib while local favorite Mikaela Shiffrin was third out off the gates and her teammate Paula Moltzan had bib no. 11. The top skiers in a Giant Slalom race have their bibs drawn in a lottery.
Sara Hector was thus first out of the starting gates and put down an absolutely smashing run with a time of 56.03 that even Lara Gut-Behrami in her red leader bib could not best—although she came close, just 0.02 seconds behind the Swede. The Swiss skier had won at Killington last year and was certainly a favorite to win today’s race. Mikaela Shiffrin with bib 3 skied into fifth place 0.02 seconds behind Italy’s Marta Bassino in bib no. 2. But the fastest first run went to young gun Alice Robinson from New Zealand who managed to take the lead from Hector by six-hundredths of a second.
Robinson had burst onto the World Cup scene at only 17 in March 2019 and shook up the status quo when the Kiwi skier finished in second in her first-ever World Cup behind Mikaela Shiffrin. Robinson had qualified for the World Cup start just a month prior when she had won the Junior World Championships in Val di Fassa, Italy. She won her first World Cup in October of that same year in the 2019/20 ski season and added another Giant Slalom victory to her resume later that season. The 2020/21 season started equally well but then the young talent hit a slump. Alice Robinson did not finish on the podium for the following two seasons. She changed up both her sponsor, switching from Völkl to Salomon, as well as her coaching staff, leaving Chris Knight and Jeff Fergus who had worked with Team USA for many years, and switching back to her former New Zealand coach Tim Cafe.
“I was so happy with my first run, it was a bit unexpected.”
— Alice Robinson
The second run in Giant Slalom is run in reverse order, meaning the fastest skiers would go last. Mikaela Shiffrin as the fifth fastest skier put down a fast second run albeit with some minor errors in the mid-section, that catapulted her into the lead. The crowd exploded in cheers but there were four women left to go. Next up was Marta Bassino who started out with good aggression and speed but the aggression became her downfall as her outer ski gave way on the top section and the Italian lost her edge and slid out. The course was clearly icy as it took the 27-year-olds quite a while to come to a stop. Luckily Bassino was unharmed but it was a DNF for her, ending her race for the podium.
Following the Italian was Sara Hector but the Swede did not manage to best Shiffrin. With only two skiers left to go this meant a podium was certain for Shiffrin. At this point, the wind on top of the course started to really pick up, but neither wind nor ice could stop Lara Gut-Behrami from defending her leader bib and the Swiss skied into the lead 0.81 seconds ahead of Shiffrin. This left only Robinson with the chance to take the title from Gut-Behrami but the young Kiwi skier could not best the spectacular run by the experienced Swiss ski racer, and finished in second 0.62 seconds behind Lara Gut-Behrami.
“Lara’s (second) run was spectacular. It wasn’t perfect but she has the mentality of keeping the speed no matter what, and that’s the level that we all want to get to. Today was pretty much an adventure, a mental adventure.”
— Mikaela Shiffrin
This marks Lara Gut-Behrami’s 39th World Cup victory and it is the first time in ten years that the Swiss skier came away with two consecutive victories. “It’s the first time actually that I’m racing with the red (leader’s) bib in GS and I keep it, so that’s a nice feeling too,” said Gut-Behrami.
While Robinson could not best Gut-Behrami, the ski racer from Downunder was nevertheless chuffed with her performance, saying simply, “Second place is amazing.”  It is great to see this young talent back on the podium, “I definitely had a few mistakes which maybe cost me the win but it was so tight after the first run that anything can happen. I was just pretty excited to be in that position again to be really mixing it for the top spots,” Robinson said — and mixing up she will.
