Industry News
With local favorite Mikaela Shiffrin out of the race due to her injuries incurred during the Giant Slalom the prior day, the victory at Killington, Vermont, was up for grabs. Ultimately, it was a double-whammy for Switzerland, with Camille Rast winning the Slalom race on Sunday, December 1, and her teammate Wendy Holdener placing second. Equal second place at Killington went to Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson.
Run 1
Run 1 of the Slalom event at Killington saw Croatia’s Zrinka Ljutic as the first runner, setting the pace with 54.97 seconds. Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener in bib 2, who is coming back from an ankle injury this season, promptly beat her by a narrow 0.02 seconds. But Holdener’s lead was not long in the making, with Sweden’s Anna Swenn Larsson in bib 3 smashing it by almost a second. The crowd in Killington went crazy as it promised to be an exciting event, despite the absence of the greatest Slalom skier of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin.
Katharina Liensberger in bib 4 could not best Holdener and skied in between Ljutic and Holdener with a 0.01-second-margin oneither side, while Michelle Gisin from Switzerland in bib 5 struggled to find her rhythm on the course, finishing almost a second behind her teammate Holdener. The third Swiss skier in the top seven who benefit from a separate bib lottery for the seven best starting positions, Camille Rast, shot down the course effortlessly and with minimal mistakes and seemed poised to take the lead from Swenn Larsson but missed out by 0.01 seconds on beating the Swede. Germany’s Lena Dürr, however, impressed by beating Swenn Larsson by 0.11 seconds with a stellar performance on the Superstar course, skiing into the lead.
The first American starter was Paula Moltzan in bib 8, who skied into what was ultimately a 15th position. All of the Team USA skiers seemed to struggle with the Slalom course on Sunday after Saturday’s incredible performance, which saw four skiers qualify for Run 2. Unfortunately, Katie Hensien, Nina O’Brien, and Mia Hunt did not make the top 30 that qualify for Run 2, finishing in 39th, 40th, and 44th place, respectively. Elisabeth Bocock, who had shown a personal best performance yesterday in Run 1, did not compete today. On Run 2, Bocock had the pole knocked from her hand by a gate in Run 2. Apparently, during the collision with the gate, the 19-year-old athlete sustained a wrist injury.
Noteworthy performances came from Germany’s Emma Aicher in bib 27, who qualified for Run 2 in an impressive sixth place. Likewise, France’s Clarisse Breche in bib 54 qualified in 19th, and young athlete Giorgia Collomb from Italy in bib 59 qualified in 26th place.
Run 2
Run 2 is operated in reverse order, meaning the fastest athletes from Run 1 go last, making for exciting watching.
Starting the race was France’s Marie Lamure, who set a fast pace for Run 2 of 53.68 seconds. She was pipped by 18-year-old Collomb, who earned the first World Cup Slalom points of her young career, making it two-for-two after placing 19th yesterday in the Giant Slalom. Collomb did not get much time to sit in the leader’s seat and had to surrender it to the next skier, Andreja Slokar from Solvenia, who got a much longer turn in the leader’s position, lasting for an impressive 12 skiers, including Paula Moltzan, who slid out and recorded a DNF, before surrendering the lead to Albania’s rising star Lara Colturi. It later emerged that Moltzan had disclocated her shoulder while trying to arrest her slide.
Colturi was promptly unseated by Canada’s Laurence St-Germain, who in turn surrendered the lead to Ljutic. Then it was turn for the top 10 skiers. While tenth-last skier Katharina Liensberger from Austria could not best Colturi’s time, ninth-last Wendy Holdener was up to the mission and smashed Colturi’s combined time by a staggering 0.89 seconds. Holdener had put down the fastest second run of the day, 0.05 seconds ahead of Slokar. It was a time the next seven skiers could not beat, including Holdener’s teammate Melanie Meillard. With the fastest three skiers from Run 1 still to go, the podium was still up for grabs.
Camille Rast pushed out of the gates and put down an absolutely flawless run, that saw the 25-year-old catapulted ahead of Holdener by 0.57 seconds. With only two skiers left to go, it was a certain podium for Rast, but things remained uncertain for Holdener. Swenn Larsson had a 0.01 second lead on Rast from Run 1–not much by any stretch of imagination. The Swede was determined to win and fought hard but could maintain the momentum across the course, surrending more than half a second in the end, finishing with the exact same time as Holdener, putting them on equal footing. It was potentially a dual third podium with one skier left to go, but unfortunately, Lena Dürr suffered her repeat fate of missing out on the podium entirely and went from first to fourth, just like she had in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The smile on Rast’s face could not have been any bigger, as the Swiss ski racer claimed her first-ever World Cup victory, after just having claimed the podium for the first time in the last two races. It has been a spectacular start to the season for Rast, who until this season had never been on a World Cup podium.
