Industry News
This weekend sees the first four events of the FIS Alpine World Cup Finals in Saalbach, Austria. On Saturday, March 16, the first day of competitions, Mikaela Shiffrin claimed the victory in the women’s Slalom. Conditions were tough at the resort with rain softening the carefully prepped race course. Warm temperatures and soft snow created challenging conditions for all of the athletes on Saturday, but race organizers worked hard to keep the track firm, salting the course between runs.
Run 1
In bib 1 was Sweden’s Sara Hector who set the pace for the Slalom race with a time of 54:09 seconds. Her teammate Anna Swenn Larsson was next in bib 2, who promptly snatched the lead from Hector by nearly a second. The 0.99-second gap between the two Swedes left a lot of potential room for other competitors. Lena Dürr from Germany in bib 3 went for a safe run, knowing that a top 10 position would secure her second place in the Slalom standings for the season behind Mikaela Shiffrin.
Shiffrin was in bib 5 and looked fluid on the top section, going into the lead. She lost some time on the mid-section but then the flat section with many gates — her forte — enabled her to get ahead of Swenn Larsson’s time again. The course for run 1 had been set by Shiffrin’s coach Karin Harjo, so expectations were high but Shiffrin could not quite catch the Swede, skiing into second place 0.11 seconds behind Swenn Larsson.
Rounding out the top three was Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic, who finished 0.67 seconds behind Hector. Also squeezing into the gap between the two Swedes into fourth place was Canada’s Ali Nullmeyer, who finished 0.08 seconds faster than Hector who was relegated to fifth. Team USA’s Paula Moltzan skied into seventh place on run 1 with a strong run with only minor mistakes.
Run 2
In Slalom racing, the combined time of two runs counts, with the top 30 skiers from run 1 qualifying for run 2. However, since it’s the World Cup Finals to which only a limited number of skiers get invited, the field only consisted of 23 skiers. An invitation to the World Cup Finals goes each year to the top 25 finishers of the season, the Junior World Champion as well as any skier with more than 500 points. Not every skier who is invited will attend, as was the case with Federica Brignone, who elected to not compete in Slalom in order to be able to focus on Giant Slalom, where she is currently ranked second and could still go ahead of Lara Gut-Behrami.
Slovenia’s Neja Dvornik claimed the fastest run 2 of the day, shooting into the lead from 21st place and remaining in the seat for a total of 13 subsequent skiers. It was Norway’s Lina Fürst Holtmann who broke Dvornik’s reign as leader, skiing into the lead by 0.13 seconds. Typically it is the top five skiers who will end up on the podium but Holtmann held on to her lead almost until the very end and her smile grew bigger with every skier failing to beat her, as she was inching closer to claiming her only third-ever career podium and second-ever Slalom podium.
Paula Moltzan as seventh last starter recorded a DNF when the American skier straddled a gate on the mid-section, ending her race for FIS points in the World Cup Final. Fifth last starter was Sara Hector who had a huge lead of 0.88 seconds on Holtmann, but the Swede could not match her speed from run 1 and was relegated to what was ultimately 12th place. Ali Nullmeyer was the fourth-last ski racer but was also unable to maintain the speed and finished in seventh place. Third-last skier was Zrinka Ljutic but the 20-year-old Slovenian also straddled a gate, ending her bid for one last podium for the season. Ljutic has been having a fantastic season but her second run at Saalbach was filled with errors that ultimately culminated in her coming into the gate from an awkward angle.
Mikaela Shiffrin was the second-last skier and the American had a staggering 1.76-second lead on Holtmann. While she gave back a large portion of the lead on the top section, it was enough to ski into first place ahead of Holtmann by 0.54 seconds.
All eyes were on the last skier, Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson who was going for her third career victory. The Swede had a 0.11 lead on Shiffrin and managed to extend the lead on the top section to 0.20 seconds. She maintained her lead on Shiffrin until the mid-section but could not match Shiffrin’s agility on the bottom and lost significant time on the second half, relegating her even behind Holtmann into third place.
This marks Shiffrin’s 97th World Cup victory and her 60th Slalom victory. With her victory last week, Shiffrin already had secured the Small Crystal Globe, her eighth for Slalom and 16th overall, but was awarded the trophy today at the World Cup Finals.
”It is incredible. It’s a lot of work for the whole team. Situations like this, for me, with this season, you have to rely on the people around you supporting you so much. It’s always that way, but when you’re trying to come back from an injury, and it’s kind of a rush, and it’s stressful, and it’s important for everyone… It just shows even more how important the support system around me is working, and I’m so grateful for it. I’m so happy to have these final two races, which is giving us something to be really proud of going into the prep season.”
— Mikaela Shiffrin
Tomorrow, Sunday, March 17, will see the women’s Giant Slalom. Mikaela Shiffrin has announced she will not compete in the Giant Slalom. The current point leader in Giant Slalom is Lara Gut-Behrami with 745 points, with Italy’s Federica Brignone 95 points behind in second place.
