Eva-Maria Brem of Austria, second place finisher and Federica Brignone of Italy, third place finisher were also both on the podium in the 2014 giant slalom at the Aspen Winternational in first and third place, respectively. The last American female victor here was Tamara McKinney, who took home giant slalom gold in 1981. “To win the overall, you have to ski fast”.
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The American curse can be broke this weekend with a slalom race for for both Saturday and Sunday before the Tour moves on to Lake Louise in Canada next week.
After checking to see if Shiffrin was OK Lara Gut started celebrating the victory from the podium enclosure.
But she caught an edge approaching the finish line and crashed out leaving Gut to take the victory with a combined time of 2:02.51 minutes.
Shiffrin, however, never made it across the finish line on her run. Shiffrin’s crash just before the finish effectively handed the victory to Gut with Brem finishing second and Brignone third.
Shiffrin led the way after the first run with a time of 59.04 seconds, while four-time overall champion Vonn – making her season debut after recovering from a fractured ankle and a thumb injury – fell after losing one of her skis. “I let go in the second run and you saw what is possible”.
Shiffrin was the first-run leader and was cruising toward a win, even if she “didn’t feel great”. “But I was fighting really hard, and I’m proud of that”.
“I had really good training days the last few weeks so I was pretty disappointed after the first run”, said Brem. I felt like I was charging. “There are no easy gates”. It never happened to me in a race before.
Shiffrin slipped just as the cheering crowd had reached its crescendo. “Just have to make sure I stay smart to the finish”. Brignone amassed a big lead after the first run in Soelden and Shiffrin couldn’t make up the ground.
The second run’s gates were set by the Austrian coaches, with Shiffrin, Brem and Gut again mastering the decisive sections around Summer Road. Right before the third-to-last gate, she said she was thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe I made it this far”.
“Tough course”, Gut explained.
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“You should never, ever think that because immediately something bad will happen”, said Shiffrin, whose 15 World Cup victories have all come in Europe. “You have to push hard from start to finish”, said Gut of the challenging slope.
