The Italian Federica Brignone is reaching for her second victory of the season in the giant slalom in Semmering. She is the leader of the top trio around Lara Gut-Behrami and Sara Hector.
Gut-Behrami from Switzerland was the first to put an exclamation mark on the Magic Mountain. The fourth overall finisher crossed the finish line in 1:02.43 minutes and temporarily took the lead. But Gut-Behrami quickly had to give up the place in the leader seat because Federica Brignone, who was following her, was even faster.
Brignone leads from Gut-Behrami
The Italian also drove almost flawlessly on the course set by her coach, but was temporarily behind the Swiss. But Brignone handled the last few goals better than her Swiss competitor and goes into the second round with a lead of 15 hundredths of a second. The 34-year-old described her run as “rhythmically good” in the ORF interview. She also coped well with the snow conditions. Brignone had already won the season opener in Sölden.
Hector with a chance of winning
Third-placed Swede Sara Hector also still has a chance of winning, although the Magic Mountain caused her major problems, especially in the first section of the route. Like Brignone, Hector also caught up in the finish section and reduced her gap to 24 hundredths of a second.
Behind the leading trio the gaps are increasing. The American Paula Moltzan (+0.53 seconds) and Valerie Grenier from Canada (+0.56 seconds) are more than half a second behind the leader Brignone.
Dürr and Aicher are worried about the second round
Lena Dürr got off to a good start, but lost more and more time as her journey progressed and reached the finish more than two and a half seconds behind (+2.58 seconds). Dürr was in 28th place after 45 runners, but is still likely to miss the second round.
Especially since her teammate Emma Aicher was also faster. The 21-year-old was six hundredths of a second ahead of Dürr and was now 26th (+2.52 seconds). But it probably won’t be enough for the second run for them either.