Lara Gut-Behrami succeeds in returning to the World Cup. The Ticino woman finished fifth in the giant slalom in Kranjska Gora in Slovenia, which was dominated by the Swede Sara Hector, as the best Swiss woman.
It has been a tough time so far, this first part of winter. Lara Gut-Behrami had to endure a lot of hardship. There was the stubborn cold that hit her during the North American tour, there was the violent fall in the second Super-G in St. Moritz. And when the Ticino woman was lucky to have survived the flight into and over the safety net without serious injuries, the next setback followed with a positive corona test.
The virus disease lasted for four weeks Lara Gut-Behrami away from the World Cup. In this phase she missed five races, one downhill, one Super-G and three giant slaloms – probably too big a gap in the Ticino’s personal competition calendar to have a say in the award of the large crystal ball. The gap to the American Mikaela Shiffrin, who is leading in the overall standings, grew to over 500 points.
Lara Gut-Behrami had a hard time returning to the race track. It was 17th place in the first round of the giant slalom in Kranjska Gora, where the Women’s World Cup in Slovenia had to move because of the lack of snow in Maribor as in the two previous winters. Afterwards, the Ticino woman reported that some things had not yet worked out. “I struggled with the timing. And the balance was also missing. »
Strong reactions
But the world champion was able to react – at least as long as she had enough strength. “In the lower part of the second run I felt the tiredness.” In view of the preparation, that was not surprising. The giant slalom training was last limited to a single day. Nonetheless, Lara Gut-Behrami was third fastest in the afternoon, which brought an improvement of 12 places in the final ranking.
Andrea Ellenberger made yet another leap forward in the second run. The woman from Nidwalden, who was thirty just finished qualifying, moved up 17 places with the second-best running time. Rank 13 means the best classification of the current season and the third best in a World Cup giant slalom for the Central Swiss who returned after a cruciate ligament tear.
Michelle Gisin and Wendy Holdener went the opposite way. The Obwalden fell from 6th to 10th place, the Schwyzerin from 11th to 17th place. Thanks to her 20th place, Simone Wild from Zurich secured World Cup points for the third time this season, Vivianne Härri, also from Obwalden, achieved her first countable result in the World Cup in her sixth giant slalom with 27th place.
The new number 1
The giant slalom driver of the hour is Sara Hector. The Swede, who had to wait seven years for her second World Cup victory, won again a good two weeks after her success in Courchevel in Savoy. With the latest success, thanks to which she also took the lead in the discipline classification, she was in a class of her own. With two fastest times she distanced the second-placed French Tessa Worley by almost a second.
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