Sara Hector determines Killington’s first giant slalom run. Mikaela Shiffrin has to roll up the field from far behind at her home World Cup.
Already at the top she crouched down – unlike all the competition. And this attitude was maintained by the Swede Sara Hector in this short giant slalom slope Killington all the way to the bottom. This requires strong thighs and a certain pluck – which brought her the lead after the first round on Saturday afternoon (November 26th, 2022).
38 hundredths of a second ahead of the Norwegian Ragnhild Mowinckel the giant slalom Olympic champion is now going in Vermont, on the east coast of the USA, in the decision (race 2 from 7 p.m. CET in the sports show live stream). The Scandinavians were clearly the most confident on the fast track – and so even minor mistakes in their runs didn’t have a major impact.
In third place, the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami (+0.43 seconds) is lurking just ahead of the Slovakian Petra Vlhova (+0.46).
Shiffrin still without a giant slalom victory in Killington
Mikaela Shiffrin had big problems at her home World Cup – she only finished tenth (1.36 seconds back). The local hero has to roll up the field from behind. In this short giant slalom, however, it will be extremely difficult to catch up on the podium by almost a second.
So far, she has not been able to win in this discipline at home either – unlike in the slalom, by the way, which is then due on Sunday (from 4:15 p.m. CET at the sports show): Shiffrin triumphed in all of the World Cup slaloms at home.
German runners Hilzinger and Schmotz miss second round
But she’s not going into the second run completely without motivation: on Saturday she could be the first to win the first three World Cup races of a ski winter. Last week was Mikaela Shiffrin successful twice in Levi in Finland. However, the larger turns are not yet so smooth for her.
The two German runners could not qualify for the second round: Jessica Hilzinger was 3.51 seconds behind in 43rd place, Marlene Schmotz was 51st (+4.85).