An unbeatable Federica Brignone won the second Giant Slalom held in Sestriere. Lara Gut-Behrami finished in second place +0.77 seconds behind Brignone. Alice Robinson rounded up the podium 0.79 seconds off the pace. It's the 34th World Cup victory and 16th in Giant Slalom for the 2024-2025 Overall leader. She matched Tessa Worley and Annemarie Moser-Pröll for third place on the all-time winners list in women's Giant Slalom.
The 34-year-old is already the oldest winner of a women's World Cup race. Of her 34 World Cup victories, more than half (19) have come after she turned 30. The Italian consolidates her leading position in the overall standings. Lara Gut-Behrami who finished second today is now 190 points behind Brignone.
Fourth in the first run, Brignone stepped it up a gear to record the fastest time in the second run.
"In the first run, I didn't feel so good, so smooth as I can ski. I tried everything in the second run. We were all close and the visibility was gone for us, the last ones, so it was not really easy," Brignone said.
Today, Lara Gut-Behrami claimed her second Giant Slalom podium of the season. It's her 97th podium in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
"I know that when you try to be fast, sometimes it happens what happened yesterday. I just tried to forget everything and focus on skiing. It's not the easiest season for me this year. I just tried to stop thinking, 'Well, I'm missing what I could do better,' and focusing on what I can do, and today was a good race." Gut-Behrami said.
"At the moment I feel like I'm being a bit too cautious, but the fact that I'm still on the podium is good. I didn't approach the second run tactically, but when everything comes naturally, you can always take a risk at every gate. But if you're only at 95 percent, or there's a little doubter somewhere, then you don't ride as determinedly at the gates and you end up a second behind," she added.
Alice Robinson, the leader of the Giant Slalom standings, has been on the podium in six of the seven Alpine Ski World Cup Giant Slalom races this season. Her only race without a podium was a DNF in Killington in November.
"I wanted a bit more today. I just tried to push a little bit too hard out of the gate and made that mistake. It probably happened at the worst place because I had no speed for the flats. I thought I skied the bottom part well. I'm really happy with how far the consistency's come, so I'm glad," Robinson said.
On Friday, Mikaela Shiffrin started her first Giant Slalom since her fall at the end of November. She finished in 18th place. Today, Shiffrin finished the first run in 33rd place and did not qualify for the second run. The last time she missed out on qualifying for the second run in a Giant Slalom was in October 2012, when she missed the Top 30 by a hundredth of a second at the season opener in Sölden, finishing 31st.
Comments