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ARE, Sweden (AP) — Lara Gut-Behrami closed in on the women’s World Cup giant slalom title Saturday, as the Swiss skier posted the second-fastest time in the opening run of the penultimate race of the season.
Olympic GS champion Sara Hector held a commanding lead of 0.61 seconds at the event in her native Sweden. Mikaela Shiffrin sat out the race after recovering from knee injury, but the American star plans to return to racing at Sunday’s slalom.
After winning four races this season, Gut-Behrami leads the GS discipline standings by 135 points from her only remaining challenger, Federica Brignone.
With only one more GS coming up at the World Cup finals in Austria next week, Brignone must gain 35 points more than Gut-Behrami does to stay in contention, but the Italian trailed Gut-Behrami by 0.55 seconds in third.
“I didn’t have a good feeling in the first part. A lot of wind and no visibility, usually that’s good for me, but today I didn’t get the feeling, it was tough,” said Brignone, adding she didn’t fancy her chances of overtaking Gut-Behrami even before the race.
“No, it’s decided. I’m here only to race well and hopefully finish on the podium.”
If Gut-Behrami locks it up, it would be the first discipline title to be confirmed this women’s World Cup season. The Swiss star is also a strong favorite to win the overall title since Shiffrin didn’t race in the past six weeks, and Gut-Behrami holds healthy leads in the downhill and super-G standings.
The only discipline Gut-Behrami cannot win is the slalom, where Shiffrin is likely to secure the season title upon her return on Sunday. It would be the American’s record-equaling eighth slalom globe.
Opening the floodlit race in light snowfall, Hector was near-flawless in an attacking run on a course she skied “countless times” when she visited the local ski gymnasium in her junior years.
“It didn’t feel so easy, but it was good to start first,” said Hector, who is chasing her sixth career GS win and first since triumphing in Jasna, Slovakia in January.
Time differences in the first run were remarkably large, as a deficit of more than two seconds was still enough to rank inside the top 10.
Austrian skier Katharina Liensberger had a nasty crash when she skied through a gate and lost balance, then fell backward with her helmet hitting the snow. Liensberger, the 2021 slalom world champion, stayed down for a minute, but ultimately stood up.
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