Flachau (Austria) (AFP)
The Slovakian Petra Vlhova confirmed her great form of the moment by winning on Tuesday the slalom of the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Flachau (Austria), inflicting a 2nd consecutive defeat to the American Mikaela Shiffrin (3rd) in her favorite discipline, a scarcity.
Petra Vlhova created a mini-sensation: it was more than five years ago that Mikaela Shiffrin had not let two consecutive World Cup slaloms escape in the same season!
Indeed, Vlhova (24 years old) has already won between tight pickets on January 4 in Zagreb (Croatia), ahead of the American with 64 victories (including 43 in slalom).
The Slovak renewed her feat in the night slalom of Flachau, first winning the first run, before taking the shock on the second track against the Swedish Anna Swenn Larsson, who failed just 10 hundredths in a thrilling final .
Anna Swenn Larsson (28) almost created a real earthquake and succeeded her compatriot Frida Hansdotter, who won Flachau three years ago: since then, no skier has managed to win a World Cup slalom except Vlhova and Shiffrin, a series of 25 races!
But for once it is Vlhova who plays the role of the steamroller, with an 11th success in the World Cup (7 in slalom) while Shiffrin has not found his usual ease (3rd to 43 hundredths).
The Slovakian, 2019 world champion of the giant, was already the runner-up of the American last season, in the general classification as in the classification of the specialty.
But a start to the middle season took her away from the stars. The triple title holder of the big globe Mikaela Shiffrin (24) therefore remains largely in the lead with 273 points ahead of her main rival.
The American, quadruple world champion in the specialty, sees her gap narrow in the ranking of the slalom globe and has "only" 80 points ahead of Vlhova, with 4 more races to go.
Skiers have an appointment this weekend for a giant then a giant parallel to Sestriere (Italy).
© 2020 AFP