The Obwalden finished third in a slalom won by Austrian Katharina Liensberger. In Are, bad operation for Mikaela Shiffrin compared to Petra Vlhová.
© AFP
18th podium for Michelle Gisin in the World Cup, as smiling as Mina Fuerst Holtmann (left) and Katharina Liensberger.
What’s going on with Mikaela Shiffrin? After completely failed Games, where she had returned from China empty-handed, here she begins to tremble in the World Cup. In this exercise that she has often mastered to perfection, the American with 73 victories over the white circus (including 47 between short turns), who had tamed this track four times since 2012, only ranked in 9th place in an Are slalom won by Katharina Liensberger, her 3rd victory in the World Cup. The Austrian, Olympic vice-champion last month in Yanqing, had already won in Sweden last season.
© AFP
Mikaela Shiffrin is losing everything…
Fourth, Petra Vlhová missed the mark to widen the gap even further on her rival from Colorado. The Slovak, trained by the Swiss Mauro Pini, however, returns to 56 points overall which promises a hell of a fight between these two champions in the finals of Courchevel and Méribel next week.
7 hundredths from Holtmann
With this duel at the top, we almost forget the new fine performance of Michelle Gisin. The combined Olympic champion climbed to a super third place, celebrating her 18th podium in Sweden, her 4th this winter. The Obwalden, sixth in the first run, finished 7 hundredths behind the Norwegian Mina Fuerst Holtmann. And to think that she suffered from mononucleosis this summer at the start of her preparation…
As during the Beijing Games, Léna Dürr, who had started in the last position of the gate, broke down, to settle for fifth place. Definitely bad luck for the German.
Seventh on the first track, Aline Danioth, who celebrated her 24th birthday this Saturday, also lost a lot of ground on the second track, to slip to 19th place. Pity.
Nice comeback from Meillard
Quite the opposite of Mélanie Meillard. Like her brother, Loïc, author of a superb comeback in Kranjska Gora, to fail at the foot of the podium, the Valaisanne, only 26th in the morning, completed a magnificent second run to leave Sweden with a smile and a Promising 8th rank.
Injured the day before, Wendy Holdener and Camille Rast had not started. The young skier from Vétroz, affected in the left knee, will undergo two MRIs in the coming hours.
