The first race of the 2025 Alpine Ski World Cup, a Giant Slalom, will take place next Saturday at the Podkoren racecourse in Kranjska Gora, one of the most challenging race slopes in the Women's calendar.
This is the fourth race of the Women’s Giant Slalom season. Two races scheduled for Tremblant on December 7 and December 8 were canceled due to a lack of snow.
Kranjska Gora (SLO)
January 4th Giant Slalom / Women 9:30 CET 1st run 12:30 CET 2nd run
Federica Brignone won the last Giant Slalom of the World Cup season held in Semmering on December 28, 2024. The Italian clinched her 29th Alpine Ski World Cup victory, marking her career's 14th Giant Slalom win. The only Italian to have won more than 29 World Cup events is ski legend Alberto Tomba (50).
The 34-year-old Italian skier won the Alpine Ski World Cup opening race in Soelden on 26 October. She has won four of her last five Giant Slalom races. Brignone won the last two Giant Slalom races of last season in Are and Saalbach.
Brignone has never won at Kranjska Gora. She has finished on the podium three times, twice as runner-up in 2012 and 2023, and third last season.
Federica Brignone is leading the Giant Slalom standings with 200 points.
Sara Hector claimed 19 World Cup podiums in the Giant Slalom, including six wins in Courchevel, Kranjska Gora, and Kronplatz in the 2021-2022 winter season, Jasna in 2024, and Killington in December. In 2022, an inner ligament injury deprived her of becoming the second Swedish winner of the Women's Giant Slalom Crystal Globe, after Anja Pärson (2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2005-2006). Hector won the Olympic Giant Slalom gold in Beijing.
In 2022 Sara Hector won the Giant Slalom in Kranjska Gora after setting the best time on both runs. Hector was super consistent and extremely aggressive on a difficult and exigent Podkoren slope.
The 32-year-old Swedish skier is second in the Giant Slalom standings with 196 points.
Alice Robinson finished in second place in the Alpine Ski World Cup Women’s race opener, marking her second podium in Soelden. She secured another spot on the podium in Semmering, finishing in third place.
Robinson has finished on the podium in the World Cup 12 times, including 3 victories. With one more win, she could match Claudia Riegler’s record for the most Alpine Skiing victories for New Zealand.
In 2020, at the age of 18, Robinson won the Giant Slalom in Kranjska Gora. On a very demanding course, with icy and bumpy conditions, Alice Robinson put together two solid runs, with a few mistakes in the first, but almost perfect in the second, to take her second win in the Alpine Ski World Cup.
The 23-year-old skier from New Zealand is third in the Giant Slalom standings with 140 points.
Rising star Zrinka Ljutic is fourth in the Giant Slalom standings. The 20-year-old skier from Croatia finished in second place in the Giant Slalom held in Killington. It was Croatia's first Giant Slalom podium since Janica Kostelic won in Are in March 2006.
No Croatian female skier has ever stood on the podium in Kranjska Gora.
Last season, Lara Gut-Behrami finished second in the Giant Slalom in Kranjska Gora. In the previous Giant Slalom in the Podkoren racecourse in 2023 she finished in third place.
The last Swiss skier to win the Giant Slalom in Kranjska Gora was Vreni Schneider in 1991.
Gut-Behrami has won nine Giant Slalom World Cup races. If she adds 10 to her 22 Super-G and 13 Downhill victories, she will become the first woman to complete the Alpine 'triple-double' - double-digit (10+) Alpine Ski World Cup victories in three disciplines. Hermann Maier (24 SG, 15 DH, 14 GS) and Pirmin Zurbriggen (11 combined, 10 DH, 10 SG) are the only men to have achieved this.
The 33-year-old Swiss skier can win her 46th World Cup race in all disciplines to equal Renate Goetschl in fifth place on the all-time women's list.
In the 2023-2024 winter season, Lara Gut-Behrami won the Giant Slalom and Overall Crystal Globes. It was her first Giant Slalom title. She became the first woman representing Switzerland to win the Giant Slalom Crystal Globe since Sonja Nef in 2001-2002.
In 2021, talented Marta Bassino won the two Giant Slalom races held in Kranjska Gora.
Bassino won the Giant Slalom Crystal Globe in 2021. However, her performance in the Giant Slalom during the most recent season leaves her off the podium, raising questions about her chances this season.
Bassino finished 13th in Soelden, did not qualify in Killington, and finished 7th in Semmering.
Camille Rast leads the Overall and Slalom standings and is eighth in the Giant Slalom standings. Her best discipline result this season was third at Killington, the only Giant Slalom podium of the 25-year-old's career.
Austrian skier Julia Scheib secured her maiden individual Alpine Ski World Cup podium finish in Soelden. Before this achievement, her top performances included placing fifth in Saalbach in March 2024 and Lienz in December 2023. She finished in 6th place in Semmering.
The 26-year-old achieved in Soelden the first Giant Slalom podium for Austria since Katharina Liensberger finished in third place in Lienz on December 28, 2019.
Nicole Hosp won the Giant Slalom in Kranjska Gora in 2007 and was the last Austrian to stand on the podium.
Last season, Valerie Grenier shone in the First Race of 2024 in Kranjska Gora and achieved her second victory and third podium in the World Cup (twenty days later she added another podium finish in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Downhill). She sets the best time in the second run to climb to the top of the podium after finishing in fourth position in the first run. In 2023, in the first of the two Giant Slaloms held in Kranjska Gora Grenier claimed her first podium and maiden victory in the World Cup.
Grenier's 2023 win was the first World Cup Giant Slalom win by a Canadian in 49 years, since Kathy Kreiner won in Pronften, Germany, in 1974.
Grenier was fourth at the Giant Slalom in Semmering. She is currently in 10th position in the discipline standings.
Mikaela Shiffrin, the 2022-23 Giant Slalom Crystal Globe winner, is sidelined with injury. Shiffrin's hopes of her 100th Alpine Ski World Cup victory were painfully dashed in Killington. Shiffrin, who was clearly in the lead after the first run, fell heavily in the second run. The 29-year-old slipped on the steep slope and crashed violently into a gate. Shiffrin remained on the side of the track for what seemed like an eternity.
She suffered a deep puncture wound to her abdomen, and on December 12, Mikaela Shiffrin underwent unexpected surgery to remove fluid buildup from a deep puncture wound in her abdomen.
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