(Soldeu) Switzerland’s Lara Gut-Behrami came from behind to win the giant slalom at the Andorra World Cup on Saturday.
Gut-Behrami moved from ninth to first to beat New Zealander Alice Robertson by a hundredth of a second. At the same time, she overtook the American Mikaela Shiffrin at the top of the general ranking.
Riding a three-game winning streak, Gut-Behrami increased his points total to 1,214, five more than Shiffrin, who is not competing in the weekend’s races due to a left knee injury.
“It’s probably a month too early,” Gut-Behrami said of taking first place in the standings. For the general classification of the World Cup, this season has shown us that you have to be fast and healthy. This will always be my top priority. »
Many top skiers have been involved in serious falls recently and suffered season-ending injuries. This was particularly the case for Canadian Valérie Grenier, Petra Vlhova and Corinne Suter, as well as Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Alexis Pinturault and Marco Schwarz, on the men’s circuit.
Shiffrin injured her knee, but avoided damaging ligaments when she crashed into the safety net during a downhill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, 15 days ago.
She will also miss Sunday’s slalom in Andorra, as her return to the slopes is not yet determined. Gut-Behrami does not participate in this discipline.
“I am so happy with this victory. It was a difficult race. I completely missed the first descent, I didn’t pick up any speed,” observed Gut-Behrami, who finished 61 hundredths behind the leader during the morning session.
Marta Bassino led Federica Brignone for an Italian double in the first run, but they dropped to sixth and fourth respectively.
Bassino was the junior giant slalom world champion 10 years ago. She won the World Cup title in the discipline in 2021, but has only won one race on the circuit in the last three years.
Most of the skiers struggled and lost time on a bump in a right turn near the end of the course. Gut-Behrami did the same, but the rest of his race was almost faultless.
“The second run was good. I just attacked. I made a big mistake at the finish, so I’m really happy it finally worked out, she said. Everything I lacked in the first round, I wanted to show in the second. »