Every year in mid-January, the best Women's Slalom racers meet for the Night Slalom at the Hermann Maier racecourse in Flachau. Next Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 the spectacle will be back to the Austrian ski town.
On January 10th, 2010, a night race was held for the first time under the floodlights in Flachau. Marlies Schild won the race and was crowned the first "Snow Space Salzburg Princess".
Flachau is a village in the district of St. Johann im Pongau in the Austrian state of Salzburg.
Flachau is part of the Ski Amadé ski domain, a network of 28 ski areas and towns that stretches from the south-east of Salzburg to the upper Styrian Ennstal creating one of the largest ski areas in Europe. With only one lift pass you can ski on 760 kilometers of slopes served by 270 modern lifts, spread out throughout the top five ski regions of Salzburger Sportwelt, Schladming-Dachstein (including the Dachstein Glacier at 2,700 m), Gastein, Hochkönig, and Grossarltal.
Flachau (AUT)
January 16th Slalom / Women (Night Event) 1st run 18:00 / 2nd run 20:45 CET
Racecourse facts:
Start Elevation: 1145 m
Finish Elevation: 960 m
Vertical Drop: 185 m
Course Length: 630 m
Last season, under the lights of the Hermann Maier racecourse in Flachau, Petra Vlhova won her first Slalom win of the season. Vlhova benefited from the course set by her trainer Mauro Pini in the first run and set the best time, and then showed her class in the second run setting the second best time.
Mikaela Shiffrin finished in second place 0.43 seconds behind Vlhova.
Lena Dürr finished in third position (+0.85) after setting the best time in the second run to earn her first podium of the season.
Flachau Night Slalom Race Preview
Mikaela Shiffrin, Petra Vlhova, Marlies Raich, Frida Hansdotter, Veronika Velez Zuzulová, Maria Höfl-Riesch. These are the names of the skiers who won on the Hermann Maier FIS World Cup course and were crowned Snow Space Salzburg Princess.
Mikaela Shiffrin and Petra Vlhová have recorded a 1-2 finish in 23 Alpine Ski World Cup Slalom events. Shiffrin finished ahead of Vlhová 13 times and it was the other way around 10 times.
The six women's World Cup Slalom races this season were won by Mikaela Shiffrin (3) and Petra Vlhová (3).
Mikaela Shiffrin and/or Petra Vlhová finished on the podium in each of the last 14 World Cup Slalom events. The last time with a podium in Slalom at the World Cup without Vlhova or Shiffrin was in Killington on November 27, 2022.
Each of the last five women's World Cup Slalom held in Flachau was won by Vlhová (3) or Shiffrin (2), a run stretching back to a victory for Frida Hansdotter in 2017.
Petra Vlhova won her third Slalom race of the season in Kranjska Gora. It's Vlhova's 31 World Cup victory. Twelve of the last 13 women's World Cup Slaloms were won by Mikaela Shiffrin (7) and Petra Vlhová (5). The only exception in that run was a victory for Lena Dürr in Špindleruv Mlýn on 29 January 2023.
With 22 wins, the 28-year-old skier is now fourth in the all-time women's ranking for most World Cup Slalom wins, behind Mikaela Shiffrin (53), Marlies Schild (35), and Vreni Schneider (34).
Vlhova is a three-time winner of the Flachau Night Slalom. She won in the Austrian ski resort in 2019, 2020, and 2023.
Mikaela Shiffrin won the Slalom events in Levi, Killington, and Lienz. Shiffrin recorded 56 of her 93 wins in the Slalom, a record for most wins in a single event. Ingemar Stenmark follows with 46 wins in the Men's Giant Slalom, and Lindsey Vonn with 43 wins in the Women's Downhill.
With 147 podiums is in second place all-time for most Alpine Ski World Cup podiums. Ingemar Stenmark with 155 holds the record. Only Stenmark (81) has recorded as many podiums in Slalom as Shiffrin (80).
Since 2018-2019, Shiffrin has recorded just two DNFs in 48 Slalom World Cup starts: in Kranjska Gora on January 9, 2022, and again in the last Slalom in Kranjska Gora Shiffrin failed to finish the first run after straddling a gate.
Mikaela Shiffrin has won four times in the Night Slalom in Flachau: 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2021. Shiffrin finished on the podium 9 times in 10 starts at Flachau. The exception was in 2011 when she did not finish the first run.
Lena Dürr Lena Dürr finished on the podium for the fourth time this season in Kranjska Gora. It was her twelve podium in the World Cup, her eighth one in Slalom. She finished in second place in Lienz, and second and third respectively in the two Slaloms held in Levi.
The 32-year-old German skier achieved her first Slalom World Cup victory last season in Špindlerův Mlýn on January 29, 2023.
Dürr won the bronze medal in the Slalom at the 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships in Méribel.
Dürr finished in third place in Flachau in 2023.
Starting with bib number 38 and reaching 16th place on the first run, 23-year-old A J Hurt managed to snatch her first podium in the World Cup in Kranjska Gora with the fastest time on the second run. Previously, her best World Cup result was ninth place in the Giant Slalom in Tremblant in December 2023. In the Slalom, the 23-year-old US athlete's previous personal best was 25th place in Courchevel, also in December 2023.
Katharina Liensberger returned in Levi to a World Cup Podium. The 26-year-old from Vorarlberg surprised the audience with two consistent runs. Before Levi, the last time she finished in the Top-3 was in March 2022, when she won the Slalom in Åre.
The winner of the 2021 Slalom Crystal Globe and World Champion in Cortina, faced a highly challenging 2022-2023 season, finishing in the Slalom Top-10 just twice.
In 2021 a consistent then Katharina Liensberger finished in Flachau in second place +0.19 sec behind Shiffrin after setting the best time in the second run.
The only Austrian women to have won a World Cup event on home snow in Flachau were Renate Götschl (Super-G in January 1995) and Marlies Schild (two Slalom races in January 2010 and December 2011).
Anna Swenn-Larsson finished fifth in the Slalom standings last season. Her best Slalom standings finish was a fourth place in 2018-2019.
Swenn-Larsson shared the first place with Holdener at the Slalom event held in Killington last season. At the age of 31, the Swede became the oldest debut winner in a World Cup event.
Anna Swenn-Larsson had achieved eight Slalom podiums in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
In 2020 Petra Vlhova edged out Anna Swenn-Larsson in Flachau by only 0.10 seconds.
Leona Popovic finished second on Sunday's Slalom in Levi. It was her second Alpine Ski World Cup podium.
Last season, Zrinka Ljutic (3rd in Špindlerův Mlýn) and Leona Popovic (2nd in Soldeu) recorded the first Slalom podiums for Croatia in the Women's World Cup since Ana Jelusic in 2007.
Janica Kostelic (30), Ivica Kostelic (26), and Filip Zubcic (3) are the only three Croatian skiers to have won a race in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
Laurence St-Germain became World Champion in the Slalom at the 47th Alpine World Ski Championships in Meribel on February 18. She left the US favorite Mikaela Shiffrin behind by 0.57 seconds. Bronze went to German Lena Duerr (+0.69). For the second time, a Canadian won the world title in Slalom. Anne Heggtveit achieved this feat in 1960 in Squaw Valley.
St-Germain's best result in a World Cup Slalom event was fifth place in Åre on March 11, three weeks after becoming a world champion.
Michelle Gisin celebrated in Linez her first Top-3 of the season and returned to the World Cup podium after nine months. Her last podium was in the Super-G in Courchevel-Méribel on March 17, 2023. It was her eighth podium in Slalom in the Alpine Ski World Cup, and the third she has achieved in Lienz.
Paula Moltzan hopes to become the first USA woman not named Shiffrin or Vonn to win a World Cup event since Alice Mckennis in a Downhill on January 12, 2013, in St. Anton am Arlberg.
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