(Paris) Last stage of winter before the finals in Saalbach in Austria, the best skiers in the world meet on Saturday in Are in Sweden where the big globe can be played and where ski star Mikaela Shiffrin is supposed to make her return after a month and a half of injury.
The men’s giant and slalom scheduled for Kranjska Gora in Slovenia were canceled due to bad weather conditions, leaving Odermatt and the others a weekend of respite before the final explanations in Austria (March 16 to 23).
Not seen in competition since her fall in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy a month and a half ago, the queen of skiing Mikaela Shiffrin is due to make her return to the Are slalom in Sweden on Sunday, but should a priori skip on the giant scheduled for Saturday.
In a press release published at the start of the week, her team stressed that “Mikaela is making progress and believes that it is realistic to run a slalom, but the giant is still in question”. If more details were to “be shared in the coming days”, neither the American star nor his team have yet communicated further.
Well on her way to easily winning a sixth big crystal globe, the American, injured at the end of January, had to watch helplessly as the last 10 races saw her Swiss rival Lara Gut-Behrami take the lead.
The 32-year-old Swiss, eight victories this winter including five since Shiffrin’s injury, now has a 385-point lead over the American who is in third place in the general classification (Federica Brignone is second).
Gut-Behrami does not run slaloms, but if she scores enough points on Saturday during the giant and Brignone (giant on Saturday) and Shiffrin (slalom on Sunday) do not collect enough points, she can secure the big globe on Sunday. eight years after his first success. For this to happen, it will need to be more than 400 points ahead of its rivals at the end of the weekend, a lead allowing it to be uncatchable whatever happens in Saalbach.
PHOTO ALESSANDRO TROVATI, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Lara Gut Behrami
Lara Gut-Behrami can also secure the giant globe on Saturday if she manages to maintain a lead of more than 100 points at the end of the race over Federica Brignone. With currently 685 points for Gut-Behrami and 550 for Brignone, the Italian is the only one still capable of overtaking the Swiss in the specialty rankings.
In the same way on Sunday, Shiffrin can secure the slalom globe. She is currently 125 points ahead of the Slovakian Petra Vlhova who stopped her season due to injury and 188 over the German Lena Dürr, the only one still able to pick up Shiffrin between the stakes.
On the men’s side, the weather put a stop to the grand slam undertaken by Marco Odermatt, already winner of the big globe and the giant globe and who remains undefeated in the discipline this winter (nine victories in nine races, 12 successes in a row since last season).
Deprived of competition on Saturday in Slovenia because of the rain which damaged the track too much, he only has one giant left in Saalbach next week during the finals to achieve a grand slam not seen since Ingemar Stenmark 45 years ago. The legendary Swede still holds the record of 15 consecutive victories in a giant (spread over three seasons), but Odermatt will have to wait until next winter to possibly surpass it.