Olympic champion Sara Hector led a tight women´s World Cup giant slalom after the opening run Saturday as discipline leader Alice Robinson skied out. Chasing her first victory in nearly a year, Hector was 0.02 seconds faster than Austria´s Julia Scheib and 0.13 faster than Italian-born Lara Colturi, who starts for Albania.
“It´s not easy, the course set is unrhythmic. I just tried to give gas and ski cleanly,” Hector told Austrian TV.
Hector has seven career World Cup wins, all in giant slalom, but the Swedish skier has not triumphed since winning a race in Slovenia in the first weekend of January.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who won the race in Semmering near capital Vienna four times between 2012 and 2022, was among the fastest starters but seemed to hold back after catching a few bumps and nearly skiing out. The American star finished in eighth position had 1.16 seconds to make up in the second leg later Saturday. Shiffrin, the 2018 Olympic champion who holds the women´s World Cup record of 22 GS victories, has not been on a giant slalom podium in her past nine races – the longest streak in her career since the first 15 GS races of her career without top-three result in 2010-11.
Dominating slalom this season with four wins from as many races, Shiffrin is still trying to regain her form in GS, more than a year after suffering a deep puncture wound in her side and severe trauma to her oblique muscles in a bad crash at a race in Killington, Vermont.
A two-time winner this season, Robinson clocked the fastest intermediate time before the New Zealand racer lost her balance and slid off the course in a left turn. “I got unlucky and off balance and I pressured in a bad spot and just went face flat,” Robinson said. “I am really disappointed not to be walking away with any points.”