Altenmarkt (Austria) (AFP)

The Alpine Skiing World Cup is stopping off this weekend in Altenmarkt in Austria, where the American Mikaela Shiffrin, immense favorite for a fourth consecutive big Crystal Globe, is challenged for the combined event by her rival Petra Vlhova in great form.

Scheduled for the last time in 2017, the Altenmarkt-Zauchensee event, in the country of Salzburg, returns to the menu of the women's circuit in the heart of a decisive month for the conquest of the big Globe.

It is one of the rare stages in which the 24-year-old American woman with 64 victories on the world circuit has never rubbed her spatulas and where she has no reference.

With a large lead in the general classification, Shiffrin will skip the descent on Saturday and his presence at the start of the combined Sunday (super G and slalom) is not fully acquired.

It will be the first combined of the season after the cancellation in December of that of Val d'Isère, reprogrammed in Bansko (Bulgaria), at the end of February.

He intervenes while the rivalry culminates between the American and her runner-up in the general classification, the Slovakian Petra Vlhova, who proved to be imperial, by damaging her the pawn of a little more than a second in the Zagreb slalom at weekends -end last.

Are the methods of Vlhova's Italian coach responsible for this? Livio Magoni moved the white circus when he admitted in a recent interview to Gazzetta dello Sport that he was filming Shiffrin's training.

This "espionage" is not to the liking of the queen of the circuit who replied on the American television channel NBC: "What I do with my skis, it is my business".

Determined not to disperse, Vlhova also gave up the descent on Saturday, after taking part in training.

At home and on a track deemed to be the fastest on the circuit, where skiers reach the speed of 125 km / h in five seconds, the Austrian Nicole Schmidhofer intends to be there.

Victorious of the last downhill, in Lake Louise on December 7, she finished second in the first training downhill on Thursday, behind the German Kira Weidle.

She will have to count with the Czech Ester Ledecka, determined to become a speed figure, after her feat at Pyeongchang in 2018 where she won the Olympic super-G title in alpine skiing, before being crowned as a giant parallel to snowboarding (its discipline of origin).

Third in the general classification of the World Cup, the Italian Federica Brignone, 30, should be conqueror Sunday, after a very good start to the season which saw him win the giant slalom of Courchevel in December. She has won the last two combined of the circuit, in 2018 and 2019 in Crans Montana (Switzerland).

Altenmarkt-Zauchensee World Cup program:

Saturday 11 January: descent from 11.45 am (10.45 am GMT)

Sunday January 12: 1st super-G heat at 9:15 am (8:15 am GMT), 2nd slalom heat at 11:45 am (10:45 GMT)

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