In fog and snow, Slovakian Petra Vlhova won the Courchevel slalom at night on Thursday, counting for the Alpine Skiing World Cup, dominating American star Mikaela Shiffrin to claim her second success of the winter.
As is often the case in slalom, the second round came down to a duel between the Slovak and the American as both women have monopolized the podiums in the discipline for several seasons. Over the whole of 2023, they shared the victories in nine of the ten slaloms on the program, leaving little room for the other skiers to exist.
No exception to the rule Thursday evening. From the first round, the two skiers had completed the race: Shiffrin was in the lead and Vlhova 17 hundredths behind. The others were relegated to more than a second.
To beat Shiffrin, Vlhova delivered a second round of madness, full of fluidity and technical ease, to the cheers of an excited audience despite the bad weather conditions.
“I ski with confidence”
Setting off just after, Shiffrin was unable to resist, quickly losing his meager lead and crossing the line 24 hundredths behind. Far behind the queens of the evening, who now have two victories each in four slaloms contested this winter, the Austrian Katharina Truppe took third place by two seconds – a world.
Petra Vlhova, Olympic slalom champion, won her 30th World Cup victory in Courchevel, her second of the season. The 28-year-old skier had a thunderous start to the season by taking third place in the opening giant of Sölden in October then flying over the slalom of Levi in Finland two weeks later.
In Lapland, she seemed well on her way to achieving a double but finally went off course during the second slalom on the program, letting slip a victory that was in her arms… in favor of Mikaela Shiffrin, who had beaten her in Killington during the 3rd slalom of the season.
“It’s a really important victory for me tonight (Thursday),” Vlhova reacted after the race, her orange hat screwed on her head. “I was angry after coming out to Levi and felt like something was missing ever since,” she added. “Today I feel good, I ski with confidence. »
Shiffrin still in the lead in the World Cup
“She was stronger tonight,” Shiffrin admitted. “But I did good skiing so I’m satisfied,” she added, expressing fatigue accumulated since her downhill victory two weeks ago in St. Moritz (Switzerland).
Mikaela Shiffrin, ski star with 91 World Cup successes, has already won three victories this season: two in slalom – her favorite discipline – and one in downhill, a discipline in which she has only four successes on the world circuit.
Last Saturday, she decided to skip the descent from Val d’Isère to recover. She lined up the next day for the super-G but went off the track after a poorly negotiated gate.
A weekend without scoring points quickly forgotten with this new podium on Thursday. At 28, the American, who is aiming for a sixth big crystal globe, is comfortably installed at the top of the general ranking of the World Cup. She has 700 points, far ahead of the Italian Federica Brignone (557 points) and Petra Vlhova (491 points).
In the slalom World Cup rankings, the fight is closer, with the American leading the race with 330 pts against 280 for the Slovak.
The Women’s Ski World Cup continues with a giant and a slalom next Thursday and Friday in Lienz in Austria, the last meeting of the year.
