Industry News
Sweden’s Sara Hector dominated the Giant Slalom race at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, on Saturday, January 4. The Swedish ski racer led Run 1 by 1.13 seconds ahead of 18-year-old Lara Colturi. Hector managed to extend her lead on Run 2, winning the race by almost a second-and-a-half ahead of Colturi and claiming her seventh career victory and second victory of the 2024-25 World Cup season. Rounding out the podium was New Zealand’s Alice Robinson, who finished a mere tenth of a second behind Colturi in third place.
Run 1
Giant Slalom races are conducted in two runs with the combined time counting. Only the fastest 30 skiers qualify for Run 2. With Hector leading after Run 1 and Colturi in second place, it was Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund in third place, just 0.06 seconds behind Colturi. Robinson sat in fourth, while Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami qualified in fifth place.
USA’s Nina O’Brien had put down a fantastic first run that saw her qualify for Run 2 in a coveted sixth place ahead of teammate AJ Hurt in ninth place. Unfortunately, Paula Moltzan skidded out on the top section of the course on Run 1. While she managed to pull herself back up to standing with her cat-like ability to remain on her feet, Moltzan straddled the next gate and recorded a DNF. Teammate Katie Hensien qualified for Run 2 in 27th place, while the Bobcock sisters both recorded DNFs.
Alpine Canada had four women at the start, most notably Valerie Grenier, who had won at Kranjska Gora in 2024 and 2023. But Grenier in Bib 3 finished in disappointing 38th after struggling with the icy course, while teammates Justine Lamontagne and Cassidy Gray finished in 41st and 47th, respectively, and Britt Richardson recorded a DNF.
Also struggling with the icy course were the Italian tech specialists. Federica Brignone, who won the Giant Slalom in Sölden and in Semmering, Austria, this season, skidded throughout the course and wound up skidding out on the bottom section of the course, ending her bid for a third victory with a DNF. This left room for her nemesis Sofia Goggia to shine, seeing the speed specialist qualify for Run 2 as the fastest Italian in 16th place.
Run 2
Run 2 is operated in reverse order, with the fastest skier from Run 1 skiing last. Austrian Julia Scheib, who had qualified in 13th place, put down the fastest second run of the day, catapulting herself in the lead and hanging on to the leader’s seat for a full 10 subsequent skier and putting a podium in her grasp. AJ Hurt and Nina O’Brien put down solid second runs, but the combined times were not fast enough to unseat Scheib. Hurt and O’Brien finished in what was ultimately 10th and 11th place. Italy’s speed queen Sofia Goggia came close to unseating Scheib, but ultimately crossed the finish line 0.21 seconds behind the Austrian. Even last year’s Overall World Cup Crystal Globe winner and fifth-last skier Lara Gut-Behrami, whose father and coach, Pauli Gut, had set the course for Run 2, had to bow out to Scheib, crossing the finish line 0.25 seconds behind the Austrian and 0.04 seconds behind Goggia.
But the final four women were still to go, and New Zealand’s Alice Robinson was here to mean business. The 23-year-old Kiwi admits to not having taken advantage of the course setting by her coach on Run 1, “I knew I could have done better on the first run. I think I skied solid but was just too conservative.” So she went into Run 2, ready to attack, “Second run, I didn’t want to think as much. I just wanted to attack and go for it and not overthink anything. I think I found a good balance of pushing and also being smart with the tactics.” The tactics paid off, and Robinson skied into the lead, 0.34 seconds ahead of Scheib.
Next up was Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernesund, but the seasoned skier struggled to maintain the fast pace from her first run and finished behind Gut-Behrami. This left only Colturi and Hector to unseat the Kiwi, and the 18-year-old Colturi did not disappoint. Colturi put down a fantastic second run and seemed entirely devoid of jitters, snatching the lead from Robinson by the narrow margin of 0.10 seconds. It was a sure podium for the young Albanian skier who had only recently claimed the first-ever podium for Albania in Slalom at Gurgl, Austria. This also made today’s podium her first career Giant Slalom podium. “It just feels amazing,” Colturi said in an interview with FIS, “I was feeling really confident in myself in the last week and finally I’ve made two really good runs.”
It left only Hector with her second run still to go, and the 32-year-old Swede did not disappoint. She went into Run 2 with a 1.13-second lead on Colturi but impressively managed to expand on her lead, winning the race 1.42 seconds ahead of her competitor and underlining the defending 2022 Olympic Giant Slalom champion’s dominance throughout the race. This marks Hector’s seventh World Cup victory and her second victory at Kranjska Gora. “Oh my God, crazy!” Hector exclaimed in her post-race interview. “I couldn’t believe it this morning, that this could happen. I was resting a lot this week, so maybe it helped a little bit,” the athlete admitted, who had been suffering from a cold that required some rest. “When you have been training a lot, resting is a good recipe,” she added, and it seems the rest paid off.
The races in Slovenia continue on Sunday, January 5, with a Slalom race.
